Staff Report
It’s not easy for a freshman to make an impact on the varsity level in any sport. It’s certainly difficult in basketball, where freshman boys are sometimes going up against nearly full-grown men who are 17 and 18 years old and who have played dozens more games in their career — maybe even hundreds more if you factor in summer leagues and AAU.
For a 14- or 15-year-old kid, that can be pretty intimidating, going up against kids with driver’s licensed and sometimes even full beards.
But Cherry Hill East rookie Jamieson Young was anything but intimidated this season. He relished the challenge, the competition — everything that comes along with being a standout player on a Group 4 team in South Jersey.
Young led the Cougars with 474 points — an average of nearly 16 points per game — and helped lead East to a 26-4 record that included three wins in the Virginia B. Whitaker Tournament, a berth in the quarterfinals of the highly competitive Camden County Tournament, and a run to the South Jersey Group 4 championship game, where the Cougars lost by one point to Lenape.
Young wasn’t the least bit intimidated in that game, as he led his team with 14 points and also had four rebounds and a pair of assists. He can shoot the 3-pointer, as evidenced by the 55 long-range shots he made this season, but he has lot of other ways to score. He’s not afraid to mix it up with the big guys on the inside and he also knows how to get to the free-throw line. He got there 108 times this season and averaged 82 percent from the stripe.
It’s going to be fun to see what else this young man can add to his game heading into next winter!
— Dave O’Sullivan, Staff Writer
