Basketball Recap: Nick D'apolito's Big Game Can't Quite Lead Wayne Valley over Northern Highlands

Wayne Valley lost against Northern Highlands back in February of 2024 and unfortunately they wound up with the same result on Tuesday. The Wayne Valley Indians fell 66-59 to the Northern Highlands Highlanders. While losing is never fun, the Indians can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' New Jersey basketball rankings (they are ranked 136th, while the Highlanders are ranked 30th).

Nick D'Apolito

Rebounds (Career)

02/04/25 @ Northern Highlands	6
01/11/25 @ Ramsey	4
01/09/25 vs Lakeland Regional	4
12/30/24 vs Passaic	4
02/01/25 @ Red Bank Catholic	3

Wayne Valley lost despite a true team effort on offense, the best among them being Nick D'Apolito, who went 6 of 10 from beyond the arc to rack up 20 points and six rebounds. The dominant performance gave D'Apolito a new career-high in boards. The team also got some help courtesy of Zachary Derstine, who went 5 for 7 on his way to 12 points and seven rebounds.

Even though they lost, Wayne Valley was working as a unit and finished the game with 20 assists. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Northern Highlands only racked up eight assists.

Lucas Dipasupil continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines for Northern Highlands, going 11 of 20 en route to 30 points and six steals. Dipasupil's afternoon made it 14 games in a row in which he has scored at least 17 points. Rj Blake also deserves some recognition as he posted his first block of the season.

This is the second loss in a row for Wayne Valley and nudges their season record down to 11-7. As for Northern Highlands, they have been performing well recently as they've won five of their last six contests, which provided a nice bump to their 13-5 record this season.

Wayne Valley didn't take long to hit the court again: they've already played their next matchup, an 85-42 victory against Lakeland Regional on the 7th. As for Northern Highlands, they have also already played their next game, a 61-53 win against Ramapo on the 6th.