Mets to honor Seaver with jersey patch
NEW YORK » The Mets will honor the late Tom Seaver by wearing a “41” patch on their home and away jerseys this season.
The Mets announced Monday they’ll pay tribute to the Hall of Fame pitcher by putting his number on the right sleeves of their uniforms.
Seaver died Aug. 31 at age 75.
The right-hander is the Mets career leader in wins, ERA and strikeouts. He earned three Cy Young Awards during his 12 seasons with New York and pitched the Mets to their first World Series championship in 1969.
Seaver also played for Cincinnati, the Chicago White Sox and Boston in a 20-year career. Overall, he had 311 wins, a 2.86 ERA and struck out 3,640.
The Mets retired his number in 1988 and he was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.
In 2019, the Mets changed the address of Citi Field to 41 Seaver Way. The team plans to unveil a Seaver statue at the ballpark this year.
A different form of postseason excitement surrounds the Colonial Valley Conference landscape this winter.
Since COVID-19 delayed the season and there will be no Mercer County Tournament or state playoffs, the CVC decided to crown its own champion by seeding the top teams for a four-team tournament Wednesday and Friday.
It’s an intriguing event since traditionally the conference has simply had division champions, but now one school can declare itself the best of 12 teams.
No. 1 Nottingham will be hosting No. 4 Allentown at 5:30 p.m., and then No. 2 Robbinsville welcomes No. 3 Trenton at 6. Both contests are rematches from earlier in the season.
Allentown (7-4) at Nottingham (10-2)
Nottingham won at Allentown
on Feb. 10, 83-61, in a game where the Northstars led by only six at halftime before pulling away with a dominant second half.
Allentown coach Walter Kelly later said it was a game where the Redbirds were too slow getting back in transition, which is key against Nottingham because the undersized Northstars like to play pressure defense and create fastbreak points.
“When we watched how we played in the second half, we all shook our heads. We know we are so much better than that,” Kelly said. “I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”
Allentown snuck into the field by winning four of its last six games before the seedings cutoff.
Senior guard Brandon Pfeifer leads the team with 16.7 points per game and the entire CVC with 26 3-pointers. Junior point guard Dante Weise is one of the area’s top play-makers with 7.3 assists per game. The Redbirds’ biggest matchup advantage is with 6-foot-6 senior center
Sean Foley, since Nottingham’s tallest player is 6-foot-4 senior guard Donavin Crawford.
But the Northstars are the clear favorite because they have the CVC’s deepest and most experienced lineup. The team has nine seniors and five players who average at least seven points per game.
Senior guard Brandon Raba recently hit the 1,000-point plateau and tops the conference with 19.4 points per game. He also leads Nottingham in assists. Meanwhile, Crawford leads the team in 3-pointers and is second in scoring. Senior Nazir Collins is a tough defender, and Nottingham also gets key contributions from seniors Josh Morrison, Kishawn Douragh and Chris Williams.
Trenton (9-2) at Robbinsville (9-2)
In the other semifinal, Robbinsville looks to avenge a 53-45 loss at Trenton on Jan. 29.
That was the fewest points the Ravens put up all season. Trenton’s defense denied the wings, shut off screens, forced tough shots and were strong in transition with relentless man-to-man pressure.
“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Trenton. At the end of the day, they beat us,” Robbinsville coach Conor Hayes said later in the season. “They’re one of the few teams that we’re really hoping to get a second chance at, but I’m not going to take anything away from them. They’re a tough team, they’ve been playing well and (coach) Darryl (Young) has got them playing great.”
Robbinsville gets most of its scoring from junior guard Brian Herbert (17.8 points per game) and senior forward Ryan Smith (17.5 points per game). Freshman point guard Luke Billings chips in 11 points and 4.6 assists per game. Key plays also come from junior forward Pratham Nadig and senior guard Robert Kammerer.
While not as athletic as Nottingham and Trenton, Robbinsville is a threat to win it all because the Ravens have solid size across the board and play excellent defense without fouling. If they can do a better job of avoiding turnovers and running their sets against Trenton, they have a chance to advance to the final.
Robbinsville won at home against Nottingham in the season opener in overtime, 76-73, and then 10 days later coughed up a nine-point lead going into the fourth quarter at Nottingham for a 5545 loss. So a rubber match between those teams would be a thriller.
But Trenton is also a legitimate threat to capture the title with its defensive prowess.
Sophomore guard/forward Davontay Hutson (17.5 points, 11.3 rebounds per game), senior guard Davvonne Wells (14.8 points, 6.7 rebounds per game) and sophomore point guard Antwan Bridgett (9.5 points, 7.9 assists per game) lead the Tornadoes’ deep lineup.
Trenton’s last loss came against Nottingham on Feb. 15, 76-55, in a game where the Tornadoes struggled to initiate their transition offense and operate against the Northstars’ zone looks in the half court.
But Trenton has since won all of its games by double digits, so Young’s team looks ready to make a final push against its CVC rivals.
The winners of Wednesday’s semifinals will meet at the site of the higher seed on Friday.
HAMILTON >> The Hamilton High West varsity girls’ basketball team will be heading into 2021’s mini-postseason as one of the hottest teams in the Colonial Valley Conference.
The Hornets’ 20-18 nailbiter of a win over crosstown rival Nottingham Monday was the third in a row for head coach Joe Radice’s club. That puts them right there with Ewing, Allentown, Robbinsville and Hopewell Valley as the CVC teams taking winning streaks into Wednesday’s first round of the CVC Championship Pods.
Despite its recent winnings, Hamilton (4-8) was given the league’s eighth seed, which means it will have to travel to fifthseeded Hightstown (7-4) for a first-round game in Pod B at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday.
To go into that game with their heads still held high after impressive home wins over Lawrence (49-33) and its other crosstown rival Steinert (32-21, which it had not beaten in 11 years), the Hornets needed to hang tough down the stretch yesterday.
A 12-2 lead midway through the second quarter had been evened at 1515 when Northstars’ sophomore guard Kamryn Wylie banked in a 3-point field goal with 3:42 left in the fourth quarter.
Just over a minute later, Hamilton West junior guard Cierra Acevedo hit a long shot just inside the 3-point line to put the home team back up, where they stayed with the help of a 3-pointer with one minute to go from Cierra’s younger sister, Arianna, a sophomore guard who connected for her only points of the game at the best time.
“I think we’re getting more confident. We’ve focused more, and we’re playing harder,” Cierra Acevedo said. “In our timeout when they tied the game, we talked about how we had to keep our energy up. We couldn’t let them come all the way back and take the lead.”
The older Acevedo made sure of that by scoring a game-high seven points, plus scrapping for eight rebounds and three steals.
Nottingham (1-11) rallied 12-4, halftime deficit to close the gap to 12-10 with 1:35 left in the third quarter when Miyae Williams hit a trey.
“In the second half, we were starting to work better as a team,” said Northstars’ 5-foot-7 junior forward Brielle McDonough, who backed Williams’ six points with five of her own, plus 10 rebounds. “As the season’s gone on, we’ve been learning to play and win as a team, instead of as individuals.”
That definitely was the case in the second half as head coach Matt Paglione’s charges, which also received four points and 10 rebounds from 5-9 senior forward Eriel Flowers, shook off deficits and worried about improving their own game.
Tina Fedor’s steal and score gave Hamilton West a 15-10 lead at the start of the fourth quarter, but McDonough scored inside ahead of Wylie’s tying trey to give the visitors hope.
“We needed to keep our composure,” Radice said. “In the second half, we couldn’t hit most of our shots. Then Arianna hit a really big one for us. Now we just need to keep playing good defense, playing with confidence and playing together.”
Even in the last minute Monday, the Hornets needed to play that way as Williams knocked down her second 3-pointer with 35.5 seconds left to trim the lead to a basket. Both teams misfired on free-throw opportunities down the stretch, keeping the game hanging in the balance until Hamilton West sophomore guard Brielle Maigue (five points) came up with her fifth steal of the game to preserve the Hornets’ fourth victory.
“This (winning streak) has been good for us,” Cierra Acevedo said. “We still need to communicate more, get more rebounds and more of our shots need to fall, but we’re improving.”
Heading into the postseason, that is how every team wants to be playing.
NOTTINGHAM (18)
Flowers 1-2-4, BMcDonough 2-1-5, ARobinson 0-0-0, MWilliams 2-0-6, Wylie 1-0-3, Casiano 0-0-0.
Totals — 6-3-18.
HAMILTON WEST (20)
LKelly 0-2-2, CAcevedo 3-0-7, Fedor 1-0-2, AAcevedo 1-0-3, Maigue 2-0-5, Bressler 0-0-0, Prall 0-1-1.
Totals — 7-3-20.
Nottingham (1-11) 1 3 6 8 — 18 HamiltonWest(4-8) 6 6 1 7 — 20 3-point goals: MWilliams 2, Wylie (N), CAcevedo, AAcevedo, Maigue (HW).