The games in June and July might not carry the same stakes or the fanfare as those in January and February, but veteran area head coaches Jody Hill and Perrin Mosca know the importance of summer basketball in preparation of the upcoming high school season. It’s why the annual summer girls basketball leagues in both Kearny and Lyndhurst keep going.
“I think it’s great, especially to get some kids that didn’t play varsity before to play with the varsity kids and get some experience with each other,” said Mosca. “For the girls teams, freshmen girls usually have more of a chance to play at varsity so for them it’s really important.”
It’s why Mosca continued the Lyndhurst Summer League even after he stepped down as the Golden Bears’ head girls coach to take the boys head job in 2023. He started the league during his first tenure as Lyndhurst’s girls coach. Then, after a stint coaching at Hackensack, the league was revived when Mosca returned to Lyndhurst.
Not only has the Lyndhurst league continued on, this summer is its biggest season yet with 14 teams participating including local squads North Arlington, Kearny, Nutley and Bloomfield.
Each team was guaranteed 10 games in total which concluded on July 15 after playing on Mondays and Tuesdays for the last five weeks.
“Every year we get new teams so people I guess are talking about it and they’re hearing about it,” said Mosca, who has his Lyndhurst boys team in a summer league in Newark in addition to open gym scrimmages against local competition. “I think it’s a pretty good league, it’s pretty good competition and every team is competitive.”
For Kearny, it’s one of three leagues that Hill’s Kardinals are playing in this summer. In addition to the Lyndhurst league and hosting its own, Kearny makes its season debut in the Bayonne Summer League which started earlier this month and goes through mid-August.
“I would say probably this summer we’re playing more basketball than we ever have in a very long time,” said Hill, who just completed her annual Kearny Basketball Camp for young girls in the area. “I just tried to get them involved as possible with as many leagues as we can as well as some open gym workouts where we’re working on skills and drills. I feel like we have to keep trucking and keep developing our players and getting the interest.”
This past week in particular non-stop basketball for Hill, who in addition to Kearny’s Summer League commitments, hosted her annual Kearny Girls Basketball Camp for young girls in the area at Franklin Middle School. Some of Hill’s players as well as coaches from Kearny and Harrison served as instructors in the four-day camp.
Due to renovations of the Kearny High School gymnasium, the Kearny Summer League is played at Franklin Middle School on Tuesdays and Schuyler Elementary School on Thursdays.
The six-team league includes Harrison as well as a host of talented teams from Newark in Science Park, Global Studies, Bard and Newark Collegiate.The league runs through July 31.
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)