Ewing overturns deficit to advance

EWING >> While you can never quite be sure what you are going to get out of the Ewing High boys basketball team this year, there’s no doubt the youthful Blue Devils can look pretty darn good when they are on.

Such was most definitely the case in the second half on Thursday night as Ewing pulled away down the stretch to beat Middletown North, 60-49, in the opening round of the Central Jersey Group III Tournament.

With the victory, Ewing (16-10) advanced into a quarterfinal round game on Tuesday at third-seeded Burlington Township, which beat Hamilton, 5749, in another sectional opener on Thursday.

In the first half, Ewing did not look sharp. It gave up some back-door layups, struggled to get in an offensive flow and there was a lot of yelling on the bench as coach Paul Jones implored his team to raise the level of its game.

The second half was the exact opposite as Ewing turned a seven-point deficit into a three-point lead by the end of the third quarter and scored 40 points after tallying just 20 in the first two quarters.

Leading the way was junior forward Joel Cineus, who poured in 10 points in the third quarter and owned the offensive glass. His basket in which he was fouled tied the score at 37 and then he later scored his team’s last four points of the quarter.

“We just wanted it more (in the second half),” replied Cineus when asked about his team’s turnaround. “We didn’t play with intensity in the first half. When we did in the second half you could see the difference.”

And how as Ewing got key contributions from a variety of sources. In addition to Cineus’ gamehigh 19 points, Jamir Brown lit it up from outside with 18 points, including five three-pointers. Those treys were critical because for a long stretch of the game Jason Quardt (18 points) was able to keep the Shore Conference team in the lead with deadly outside shooting that included four three-pointers of his own.

In the end, however, it wasn’t enough as Ewing’s depth showed down the stretch and the team also got eight points from Cameron James.

The Blue Devils also really finished it up in style in the final few minutes with Nijah Manning splitting the Middletown North defense for a driving layup and James throwing down a slam dunk.

“I’ve been telling the team we can’t play like that,” said Jones of his team’s first-half performance. “If we play like we should at the start we are a different team. It all starts on the defensive end.

“I’m very happy with our second half. We picked it up on defense and we were able to run our offense through our bigs. And when Brown gets hot like that we can be tough to stop. We’re young and we are trying to build something here. If we play like we can we can make a run.”