Prep-Worked: CBA’s Return to Glory Ends vs. St. Peter’s Prep

MIDDLETOWN — In his first year as head coach at his alma mater, Christian Brothers Academy coach Brian Lynch led his team back to the top of the Shore Conference. State supremacy, however, will have to wait.

A 24-win season that included the program’s first Shore Conference Tournament championship since 2010 ended Thursday when CBA dropped a 59-46 decision to St. Peter’s Prep in front of an overflowing capacity crowd at Coach Vinne Cox Gymnasium, most of them there hoping to watch CBA win the battle of top-five teams in the state to secure a spot in the NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public A championship game.

Instead, it will be St. Peter’s that occupies one of the benches Monday at Jackson Township High School, where the Marauders will take on St. Joseph Metuchen in pursuit of their second trip to the overall Non-Public A championship game in the last four years.

According to Lynch, CBA already accomplished its No. 1 goal heading into the season, which was to end its 16-year Shore Conference Tournament title drought. Once that was checked off the Colts’ list, they were ready to entertain the notion of playing their way to the final Friday of the season and the Non-Public A championship game at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway.

“Our number one goal this year was to win the Shore Conference, which we did,” Lynch said. “We felt like that as a realistic goal and it was really important to our guys. We felt like we would have a puncher’s chance to beat St. Peter’s if we played really well and if we could do that, maybe get to Rutgers to play for a state championship. It didn’t work out at the end, but these are the games you want your team to play in every year so they get used to seeing what it takes to win at this level. We play this kind of competition all year to get ready and it wasn’t enough this year, but we have guys coming back who gained invaluable experience tonight and throughout the season and now, they are going to have a chip on their shoulder.”

That goal of winning the program’s first state title since 1996 will most certainly be on CBA’s agenda going forward under Lynch, who took St. Rose to a state final in his second season and finished No. 1 in the state with the Purple Roses in year three. While Lynch and his potential returning players are optimistic about the immediate future, saying goodbye to this year’s group of seniors after coming up short of a championship send off was the prevailing disappointment of Thursday night’s loss.

“We feel really good about year one and about where the program is headed, but it’s just disappointing that we couldn’t get this one for the seniors,” Lynch said. “They are such a great group of guys and they have worked so hard and been such great teammates with all of us coming over (from St. Rose). They were worthy of a chance to play at Rutgers and to compete for a state championship and we just ran into a really good team that was better than we were tonight.”

For the first five minutes of the game, CBA looked poised to play St. Peter’s tough and through one quarter, the Colts were still within striking distance, with the Marauders leading, 11-6. In scoring the final seven points of the first quarter, however, St. Peter’s knocked out just over half of a 13-0 run that gave the visitors a 17-6 lead early in the second quarter. After the teams traded baskets to land the score at 19-8, CBA never its deficit lower than 10 the rest of the way.

The second quarter proved to be CBA’s undoing, with Nick Ferdinand scoring eight of his game-high 20 points to help St. Peter’s outscore the Colts, 17-6, in the quarter to take a 28-12 halftime lead.

“Offensively, we got some really good looks. We just couldn’t can them,” Lynch said. “I don’t know if the moment was too big or the game was moving too fast out there, but we are certainly a better shooting team than we showed today. Once we got in a hole, I don’t think we played from down by 14 really all season, so I wasn’t sure how we were going to respond.”

Through one half, CBA shot 0-for-12 from three-point range and would go on to miss its first 16 attempts from beyond the arc before sophomore Izayah Cooper broke the spell with two three-pointers in the final 1:13 of the third quarter, which helped the Colts cut a 23-point deficit into a 41-25 St. Peter’s lead going to the fourth.

CBA shot 4-for-8 from three-point range in the fourth quarter and a baby hook from senior Connor Andree with just under two minutes to go cut St. Peter’s lead to 51-41, but the Colts could not get any closer.

“We never stopped fighting, which was great,” Lynch said. “We showed a lot of character. We dug ourselves such a hole that we played well and got closer, but we still felt like we had to be perfect and that’s a hard way to play against a team like that.”

Cooper led CBA with 20 points, including 18 in the second half, while Andree closed out his outstanding senior season and four-year varsity career with 10 points and five rebounds. Charlie Marcoullier also played his final game, Charlie Messano and Matt Veisz also played their final games at CBA, with Marcoullier scoring eight points on a pair of fourth-quarter threes and Messano finishing with four.

Ferdinand and teammate Mason Santiago each posted a double-double to lead the Marauders, with Ferdinand grabbing 12 rebounds and Santiago putting up 18 points and 14 rebounds in the victory.

While CBA is set to lose four seniors who saw the court on Thursday, it is on track to bring back Cooper, fellow sophomore Oymere Rene, junior Avery Lynch, junior David Buley and sophomore Aidan Dotzler. The first four of those players all opened the year as starters and Buley only shifted to the bench after he returned from a multiple-week absence due to pneumonia.

It was not a win Thursday, but CBA gave its home crowd something to cheer about with its scrappy fourth-quarter play. Lynch is hoping there is even more to cheer about in the years to come, both inside CBA’s home gym and, eventually, at Rutgers — or wherever the state championships are held.

“I remember playing St. Anthony’s here and when the gym is like that or like it was tonight, there is nothing like it,” Lynch said. “It gets loud when our Colt Crazies show up and I know they don’t show up every night, but when they show up, they show up. It’s a great atmosphere and it’s hard to duplicate.

“The experience of playing in that environment, in a game like that is going to help. I have always grown as a player, as a person and as a coach through losing. That sucks when you have to lose, but the positive is when you go back and dive into it, you learn something about yourself. I’m hoping these guys are ready to do that, because it’s going to take a lot of work in offseason. We have to get better, we have to get stronger and come back with the fire in our belly. We were close last year, so let’s get a step closer.”