Johnson rises to occasion to send Nottingham to semis
HAMILTON » The bigger the game — and the bigger the guy covering him — the bigger Darell Johnson seems to get.
Johnson collected 29 points, five rebounds and five blocked shots to pace the 2nd-seeded Nottingham boys’ basketball team to a 78-61 victory over 7th-seeded Ocean Township in an NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III quarterfinal Wednesday night.
The Northstars (25-2) will host 6th-seeded Northern Burlington, an upset winner over Hopewell, in Friday’s semifinal.
Johnson did his work against standout 6-foot-7 Andrew Seager, who finished with 26 points and six rebounds. Seager was as athletic as he was tall, but Johnson knew what he was dealing with.
“I wasn’t really surprised because me and him are familiar with each other from AAU, we’ve played each other a few times already,” the Stars senior said. “We know each other a little bit. Our scouting report was to stop him and number 35, those were their two main players. We stop them and we have a high chance of winning.”
Number 35 was sophomore Jack Miller, who set the Ocean season record for 3-pointers this season. He finished with 13 but his looks from behind the arc were limited by Nottingham as he hit just two treys. And as usual, the Northstars unleashed its threeheaded monster as Richie Jones finished with 23 and Cliff Joseph had 18. Jones has moved within 10 points of joining Joseph and Johnson in the 1,000-point club.
It was not an easy win for Nottingham, as Ocean (17-12) is extremely well coached by John Terlecsky and had a team of confident players after beating a tough Lakewood team in the first round. The Spartans nearly upset Mater Dei in the Shore Conference Tournament, and the Seraphs are one of the top teams in Non-Public B.
“They’re well coached,” Raba said. I knew how they were coming in, I was just trying to motivate the guys to tell them don’t take them lightly. They’ve got some great wins. They’re a tough, tough team and we knew coming in it was gonna be a tough game.”
Ocean jumped to a 7-3 lead and only trailed 12-11 near the end of the first quarter. But in the final minute, a Joseph bucket, a Deonte West lay-up off a fullcourt pass from Johnson and a Jones 3-pointer had Nottingham up by eight.
The lead extended to 30-13 midway through the second quarter but Ocean did not get flustered and got it down to 35-28 by halftime.
Nottingham shot just 11-for-30 in the first half as the Stars were bombing threes. Six of their 11 buckets were from behind the arc.
Things changed after break, as Nottingham began taking it to the hoop and getting to the line. After two lay-ups by Seager pulled the scrappy Spartans within 4438 midway through the fourth quarter, Nottingham scored 17 of the next 24 points to open an insurmountable 61-45 lead with under five minutes remaining. The Stars shot 24 free throws in the second half and finished 24-for-32 from the line for the game.
Next up is the Greyhounds, as Nottingham was the only one of four CVC teams to survive in CJ III Wednesday.
“I don’t know much about them,” Raba said. “They’re very athletic. I kind of thought they would give Hopewell a good game. I got a few films on them I gotta watch tonight. I have to see what they do. I did have guys out scouting them throughout the season but I didn’t watch any film because I didn’t know who would end up playing them.”
Seager 13-0-26, Miller 4-3-13, Laustsen 2-2-6, Yates 3-0-8, Yatcilla 2-1-6, Hutzley 1-0-2, Cascaes 0-0-0.
Totals —
Jones 5-9-23, DJohnson 8-10-29, Joseph 6-5-18, KJohnson 0-0-0, Montina 2-0-4, Brown 1-0-2, West 1-0-2.
23-2-4-78.
Totals —
25-6-61.
Ocean Twp. (17-12)11 17 Nottingham (25-2)19 16 3-point goals — 15 19 18 — 24 — 61 78
Miller 2, Yates 2, Hutzley (OT). Jones 4, DJohnson 3, Joseph (N).
Follow Rich Fisher on twitter @Fish4scores