The Dwight Morrow Maroon Raiders pushed their score all the way to 59 on Thursday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They opened the new year with a less-than-successful 68-59 defeat to Cliffside Park. Despite running the score up even higher than they did on Tuesday (58), Dwight Morrow still had to take the loss.
Cliffside Park was led to victory by Jerelz Ortiz and Jamil Gonzalez. Ortiz dropped a double-double on 18 points and ten rebounds, while Gonzalez scored 24 points. Those 24 points set a new season-high mark for him. Another player making a difference was Ryan Rojas, who scored seven points along with eight rebounds and three steals.
Dwight Morrow's loss ended a six-game streak of wins at home dating back to last season and dropped them to 5-3. As for Cliffside Park, the victory makes it two in a row for them and bumps their season record up to 5-2.
Dwight Morrow will head out on the road to face off against Indian Hills at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. Indian Hills will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps New Jersey Rankings (they are ranked 241st, while Dwight Morrow is ranked 76th). As for Cliffside Park, they will look to defend their home court on Saturday against Fair Lawn at 12:00 p.m.
