MaxPreps Student Section: Overtime win for East Brunswick

FREEHOLD, NEW JERSEY – The East Brunswick Bears defeated the Freehold Boro Colonials 72-67 in overtime in a nonconference matchup on Wednesday night.

The Bears, ranked third in the Greater Middlesex Conference, are off to an impressive 6-0 start after finishing 14-11 last season. The road victory against Shore Conference No. 2 Freehold Boro demonstrates East Brunswick’s goal of returning to the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV playoffs may be within reach.

Mike Summerer hit four big free throws.

Photo by Steve Goldberg

“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. It’s such a long season. This is a great win, but it’s only early January,” East Brunswick Head Coach Bo Henning said. “I want us to keep getting better and better, and that’s what we talk about all the time at practice. Hopefully we’ll keep going in the right direction. We have a bunch of great kids, so I don’t see why we can’t do that.”

The score was close throughout the entire game, and neither team led by more than 10 points. Trailing 60-58 with under 30 seconds remaining in regulation, shooting guard Lance McKenzie hit a game-tying layup for Freehold Boro that sent the game into overtime. McKenzie, despite playing with pain in his left leg, was the leading scorer with 23 points.

East Brunswick jumped out to a 65-60 lead in overtime, but the Colonials answered right back. Christian Garcia drove to the basket for an easy hoop and Sterry Codrington hit a three-pointer that tied the game at 65 with 1:15 to play.

Mike Summerer carried the Bears for the rest of the period. The sophomore forward gave East Brunswick a two-point lead with 25 seconds left and hit four free throws to seal the victory. Summerer scored 8 of his team-high 13 points in overtime.

“This game was really big. They’re a real tough team but we’re doing really good this year,” Summerer said. “We stopped Garcia; a real tough player, a real strong kid who is really good at finishing. We just found a way to stop them and got big boards at the end.”

Garcia dropped 22 for Freehold Boro

Photo by Steve Goldberg

Garcia scored the first 9 points of the game for the Colonials and finished with a total of 22. Even the dominant performances of Garcia and McKenzie were not enough to carry Freehold Boro past East Brunswick.

“Christian and Lance are just outstanding players. We were hoping we could wear them down because I think we’re as deep as anyone around,” Henning said. “We don’t do it with a lot of stars, but we try to do it with as many solid players as we can. As long as we keep staying unselfish on both ends of the court, we should have a pretty solid season.”

Freehold Boro will travel to Ocean Township on Friday to take on the Spartans. Ocean Township has rebounded from an 0-3 start with a five-game winning streak that includes an upset on the road against No. 3 Neptune.

The Bears will be on the road against their division rivals, the Old Bridge Knights. The Knights hope to give East Brunswick their first loss of the season when the teams meet on Friday night.

“I’m real proud of [my players] obviously, but as important as this game was, Friday night we have a really tough division game at Old Bridge, and that is even more important to us,” Henning said.