On Thursday, the Ridge Red Devil faced the Phillipsburg Stateliners in a battle between two of the state's top teams. Ridge was just a bucket shy of victory and fell 48-47 to Phillipsburg. Ridge has struggled against Phillipsburg recently, as their matchup on Thursday was their third consecutive lost matchup.
Phillipsburg got their win on the backs of several key players, but it was Matthew Scerbo jr. out in front who scored 17 points along with six rebounds and five assists. That makes it three consecutive games in which Scerbo jr. has scored at least a third of Phillipsburg's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Andrew Martin, who scored 16 points along with seven rebounds and two steals.
Ridge's defeat ended a five-game streak of away wins and brought them to 11-4. As for Phillipsburg, the victory was the 13th in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 13-1.
Both teams will have to hit the road in their upcoming games. Ridge will face off against Gill St. Bernard's at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. Gill St. Bernard's is out to stop a four-game streak of losses at home. As for Phillipsburg, they will head out on the road to challenge Somerville at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday. Somerville 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 164th, while Phillipsburg is ranked 11th).
