Nottingham fends off undermanned Robbinsville for CVC crown
It was not the authentic rubber match between two Mercer County powers that many anticipated, but at the end of a tumultuous week, everyone involved was just happy to be playing at all.
The fear entering this COVID-19 shortened season was that the games could be stripped away at any time. Most of the Colonial Valley Conference schedule proceeded without incident. But then the schools learned again that life isn’t fair sometimes as positive cases around the county caused Robbinsville and Trenton, two of the top-three boys basketball teams, to go into quarantine right before the CVC’s four-team tournament.
The sliver of hope was that Robbinsville’s protocols allowed the Ravens to play Nottingham for the championship with essentially their junior varsity squad, since anyone who played Monday against against Lawrence was prohibited from taking the court.
Rather than drop out of the bracket, Robbinsville accepted the challenge of playing undermanned in the top seed’s home gym. The Ravens were competitive for much of the afternoon Saturday before succumbing in the fourth quarter as Nottingham captured the CVC title with a 75-53 win.
Seniors Donavin Crawford, Nasir Collins, Brandon Raba and Kishawn Douragh scored double figures for the Northstars (13-2), who were fortunate enough to play all of their 15 allotted games.
“It was pretty weird because we knew we were going to get their best game because they had nothing to lose,” Raba said of Robbinsville. “They’re pretty much playing for next year at this point because it was their younger guys, and they’re all just trying to prove to their head coach that they can play next year or that they should’ve been playing this year. So we knew we were going to get a good game from them. I’ve got a lot of respect for their coach, their program, and they had a really good year. I’m just glad we got to pull out the final win.”
Robbinsville coach Conor Hayes said
“there was no hesitation” to compete with different players than the boys who guided the team to a 10-2 record before the playoffs.
Sure enough, the Ravens showed that the future is still bright. Freshman Tyler Handy and sophomore Pat Kapp each poured in 17 points to help Robbinsville stay within 10 points with seven minutes left in the game.
“I’ve told them from Day 1, ‘When you are in this JV/varsity program, I truly see it as one program,’” Hayes said. “These guys mix in during practice in every drill with our varsity guys, our first hour and 20 minutes every day. They’re on the same team as the varsity guys, they’re playing against the varsity guys. It doesn’t really split up to varsity/ JV until 40 minutes left in practice.”
It was an emotionally draining week for Hayes as he prepared for Trenton early in the week and suddenly had to shift to Nottingham on Thursday with different personnel. There was also disappointment that his varsity players would not get one more crack at Nottingham after the teams went 1-1 against each other during the season.
“I thought Tuesday was the best practice any team in my program has had, and we were primed and ready to go Wednesday night (against Trenton),” Hayes said. “Just not to be able to have that game Wednesday and have it pushed back, it was kind of like, ‘Alright, how I do get these guys ready?’ Then it changed again to, ‘OK, now I can’t get the varsity guys ready, so let me get these guys ready.’
“They came in fired up ready to go, and our varsity guys had their back. They were letting them know that, ‘Hey, we fully understand that you guys are going to represent the program right.’ It’s just a really good atmosphere that we have in our program.”
Nottingham coach Chris Raba told his players to appreciate the moment and not take Robbinsville for granted, knowing that Hayes’ younger players would compete hard for 32 minutes as an audition for next season. Still, the circumstances weren’t ideal for either team.
“We wanted to win the game just like any other,” Chris Raba said. “I feel bad for not just Robbinsville. I feel bad for Trenton, too. It was very unfortunate. That’s not the way that they wanted it to end, and that’s not the way that we wanted it to end either. We wanted to play Robbinsville or Trenton at full strength.”
Those were the cards dealt, though, and ultimately it was a rewarding ending for Nottingham’s nine-man senior class. Raba played in eight games as a freshman on the 2018 state title team, led the team to the Mercer County final last year and finished his career with 1,036 points.
“We watched Cliff (Joseph) and Darell (Johnson) and Richie (Jones) and all them play our freshman year, we looked up to them like our big brothers and they told us what to do, so we did it and we worked our butts off for the past three years,” Brandon Raba said. “Sadly we couldn’t play for a state tournament final or anything, so at least we have this CVC championship to look back on, and we can come back here in 20 years and see we put a banner up in the gym.” ROBBINSVILLE (53)
Handy 6-5-17, Kapp 7-1-17, Bunnell 4-0-8, Dottino 2-0-4, Smith 2-0-4, Pancari 1-0-3.
Totals — 22-6-53.
NOTTINGHAM (75)
Crawford 7-0-14, Collins 6-1-14, Raba 5-1-12, Douragh 4-2-12, Williams 2-3-9, Morrison 2-4-8, Bisset 2-0-4, Kauffman 0-2-2.
Totals — 28-13-75.
Robbinsville (10-3) 9 12 15 17 — 53 Nottingham (13-2) 14 19 18 24 — 75
3-point goals: Kapp 2, Pancari (R), Douragh 2, Williams 2, Raba, Collins (N).
TCA hoops says goodbye to the Iron Palace in what could be the school’s final chapter » Pages 29-30
Players move across the floor in a game at the Iron Palace on Saturday night between Trenton Catholic and Patrick School.