Nottingham to face old foe Moorestown in state semifinal
The old foes meet again. With Nottingham’s 78-71 win Monday night against Ewing in the Central Jersey Group III final, the Northstars (21-8) move on to play South Jersey champion Moorestown (23-7) in a state semifinal held Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Brick Memorial.
The winner will take on either Ramapo or Colonia on Saturday at Rutgers in the Group III state championship game.
“We’re just going to take one day at a time, one day at a time,” said senior guard JP Dickerson, who erupted for a career-high 34 points in the sectional final. “Just go with the flow and see what happens.”
If this matchup sounds familiar, it’s because Nottingham defeated Moorestown back in 2018 when both schools were part of the Central Jersey bracket.
And it was an epic sectional final held at Moorestown. Nottingham rallied to force overtime on a buzzer-beater by Area Player of the Year Darell Johnson and then ultimately won by three points to capture the program’s first sectional title.
Nottingham won its first state title that year as well as a Tournament of Champions game, and then Moorestown accomplished the same feats the following year after returning its core nucleus.
So there is history between Nottingham coach Chris Raba and Moorestown coach Shawn Antsey, but that was then and this is now.
This Nottingham team isn’t as experienced and doesn’t feature three 1,000-point scorers like that 2018 team, but it has a balanced lineup featuring about seven solid contributors.
The Northstars have won five in a row and advanced through the sectional as the No. 2 seed past Red Bank Regional, Matawan, Robbinsville and Ewing.
The last victory against the
top-seeded Blue Devils was an impressive breakthrough for this team not just because it won as an underdog on the road, but because of how dominantly the Northstars performed. Nottingham scored the opening bucket and never even allowed the game to become tied after that.
Dickerson led the way with his highest scoring output in 51 career games, but Nottingham truly needed a team effort to survive as Ewing cut a 19-point deficit down to two points in the third quarter.
“Completely dominated the game,” Raba said. “But it’s not just JP. It’s all those guys: Dom (Raymond), Dante (Alexander) hits a bunch of free throws at the end, TJ (Keese) controls the game on offense — it’s everyone.”
Indeed. Raymond had 12 points and several rebounds, Joe Lemly also had 12 points including two 3-pointers, Alexander
made two 3-pointers and four free throws, Jacob Dormevil had four points and helped on the glass, and Keese had seven points and several assists.
Moorestown has also had to band together without a big star. The Quakers have won seven straight including four in the South Jersey bracket as the No. 4 seed against Lacey, Hammonton, Mainland and Ocean City.
Senior David Gheysens (No. 21) is Moorestown’s go-to player as the 6-foot-4 shooting guard averages 12.6 points per game. But the Quakers had eight total scorers in their sectional final, so the Northstars can’t expect to win by simply shutting down one or two players.
Nottingham has exceled lately at speeding teams up with its pressure and running out in transition, so how that defense fares against Moorestown’s array of guards could be the biggest key to the outcome.