When Lyndhurst boys basketball coach Perrin Mosca created a schedule as challenging as any the Golden Bears have ever faced in program history, it was with nights like this coming Wednesday in mind.
That’s because after keeping its head above water during a challenging start, Lyndhurst is now one of the hottest teams in Bergen County, winning 10 of its last 11 games. The most recent of those victories, a 59-56 win over Cresskill in the NJIC Tournament semifinals on Feb. 12, has the Bears on the verge of a title.
Standing in Lyndhurst’s way is a familiar foe – St. Mary’s of Rutherford. The two longtime rivals will play in the title game this Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Paterson Charter.
“We’ve been playing our best basketball these last couple of weeks,” said Mosca. “I was waiting for it to happen at the beginning of the year. We lost some of these tough games. But you know what, it was helpful in that now we’re winning these close games and coming out on top on some of these close games. I think it’s because of the schedule we had early in the year.”
Against an equally hot Cresskill team, second-seeded Lyndhurst jumped out to a nine-point halftime lead, only to see the advantage quickly disappear as the third-seeded Cougars used a 24-8 third quarter onslaught to put the Bears in a seven-point hole going into the fourth.
“I told the kids, Cresskill has done it all year. They’ve come back against a lot of good teams and they did (against us),” Mosca said. “They made their run, but our guys never quit and they came back in the fourth. So these guys, they’ve been in these games all year long at shows.”
Lyndhurst opened the fourth quarter with eight straight points, culminating in a Filoteo Mosca 3-pointer with 6:26 left to give the lead back to the Bears at 47-46.
After a back-and-forth five minutes, Lyndhurst finally pulled ahead for good when Johnny Chaname found Avery Cano, who hit a baseline floater to snap a 56-all tie with 1:24 remaining.
Cano, who finished with a game-high 18 points, hit 1-of-2 free throws with 13.4 seconds left. A late 3-point attempt from Cresskill was off the mark, sending the Bears to their first ever NJIC final.
Chaname and Filoteo Mosca scored 17 points apiece with Chaname adding nine assists for Lyndhurst, which is now 17-8 on the season.
Two of those eight losses came to the same Gaels team they will see on Wednesday.
St. Mary’s (22-3), ranked No. 15 in the state by NJ.com, defeated Lyndhurst, 89-75, at the Jack Stone Shootout at St. Mary’s on Dec. 28. Then, on Jan. 14 at Lyndhurst, St. Mary’s earned a 74-59 victory, pulling away after the game was tied at halftime.
St. Mary’s, enters on a 17-game winning streak, the most recent a dismantling of Tenafly in the Bergen County Jamboree semifinals on Sunday.
Despite the resume the Gaels have and even though Lyndhurst has lost to them five times in the last three seasons, there isn’t an intimidation factor going into Wednesday. Instead, the Bears see an opportunity for a title as well as a little revenge.
“St. Mary’s has been one of the top teams in the NJIC for a long time and these kids know it,” Mosca said. “We’ve come up on the wrong end of quite a few games (against them) these last few years. But they’re ready to play them, they want to play them. I’m excited that they get the chance to play them again for this title.”
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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.)