Dawg Pounding: Rumson Buries Middle, Reaches First State Final

MONROE TWP. — During the months of January and February, the Rumson-Fair Haven boys basketball team was having a fair 2025-26 season, but by the lofty standards of the program, the lofty standards of their head coach and the goals that this senior-led group laid out at the beginning of the season, it was approaching cataclysmic.

Now in March, the Bulldogs are playing like the team they always thought they would be, one win from immortality.

Senior Luke Lydon led the offense through the first three quarters and classmate Luke Cruz took over in the fourth quarter to pace Rumson-Fair Haven to a convincing, 71-55 win over Middle Township Tuesday in the NJSIAA Group II semifinal, which sends Rumson to the Group II championship for the first time in program history.

The Bulldogs will play Ramsey Saturday, 6 p.m. at Jersey Mike’s Arena on the campus of Rutgers University for the Group II championship.

“I’m just so proud of our kids because we have overcome so much,” first-year Rumson-Fair Haven boys basketball head coach George Sourlis said. “Between illness and sickness and injuries and some serious stuff, life stuff. I think the old adage is never give up. You want to be playing your best in March and now we’re playing pretty darn good. The fact that we’re now healthy, the kids are believing in each other and trusting each other and they’re having fun, that’s a dangerous combination.”

Cruz and Lydon helped Rumson build its lead to 14 during the second quarter and when Middle pulled within with 6:30 left in the fourth quarter, Cruz took on the role of closer. The 6-foot-9 senior scored 13 of his team-high 23 points in that final 6:30 of action and also grabbed 15 rebounds while blocking four shots.

“I feel like my team definitely trusts me to close games at that point and I trust myself there too,” Cruz said. “They know what decisions are going to win us the game. If I don’t have an opportunity to score, I know I can give it to one of them.”

Luke Cruz has taken over in the 4th and has helped Rumson go back up 10, 56-46 with 2 to play. pic.twitter.com/uPxxcl9xNe

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) March 10, 2026

“He’s a total gamer,” Lydon said of Cruz. “He’s the best player in the Shore Conference, top in the state and he has worked his whole life for this. None of us were going down like that. We’ve got one more and I’ll get to walk out with a win on my basketball career.”

Lydon, meanwhile, scored all 17 of his points and all five of his three-pointers during the first three quarters and also dealt out six assists. Sunday’s championship game will be his final competitive basketball game as he gets set for a college lacrosse career at Boston University.

“When it comes to a close game like this, we have been in these moments,” Lydon said. “We’ve gone through every scenario, so when that game got close, we were able to catch our breath. I love basketball with all my heart, so every time I put on my shoes it could be the last time. Just sitting in the locker room after the game, looking at the other seniors, knowing that this wasn’t going to be the last game was a great feeling. We’re not ready for our season to end.”

Senior forward Alex Daniel scored 18 of his game-high 26 points in the second half to lead Middle and he opened the fourth with seven straight points to cut Rumson’s 45-35 lead coming out of the third to 45-42. Daniel converted a three-point play on which he drew the fifth foul of the game on Rumson senior Blake Ahmann — the Bulldogs’ No. 3 scorer on a per-game basis and the team’s second-leading rebounder behind Cruz — to cap his seven-point burst.

After Middle pulls within 7, Luke Lydon nails a 3 to give Rumson a 45-35 lead heading to the 4th. Lydon leads all scorers with 20, including 6 3s. pic.twitter.com/CQ57Iom6wm

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) March 10, 2026

Cruz immediately earned a trip to the free-throw line and knocked down both shots, then scored inside off a feed from junior point guard Casey Moore to push the lead to 49-42.

“Obviously, they had momentum,” Cruz said. “I feel like we had to slow down the game and I got to the line and made a couple free throws, plus a couple big shots I know I can make and that kind of changed the momentum of the game.”

Senior Chase Moore nailed a three-pointer to pull Middle within 49-45, but Rumson senior Drew Cavise buried a corner three-pointer to bump the lead back to seven at 52-45. Cavise scored all five of his points in the fourth quarter and also added four rebounds off the bench. The senior forward entered the season as a returning starter for Rumson but an unspecified health condition cost him most of his senior season. He played the first three games of the season before finding out about his ailment, then played a brief stint in a Senior Night win over St. Rose on Feb. 5. Cavise returned to real action in a round-one win for the Bulldogs over Point Pleasant Boro on Feb. 26 and his five points he scored Tuesday were his first points of the NJSIAA Tournament.

“Losing Drew was a huge blow to our psyche,” Sourlis said. “We just wanted to make sure he was going to be okay, never mind playing. The kid worked, he followed doctor’s orders, he did what he could and he got a gift. To get him back was just a huge morale lift for us. There was a feeling for the first time that ‘Okay, this is the team we thought we’d have from the beginning. Now we have it, so let’s go win.'”

Junior Kanye Perkins cut the Rumson lead to 52-47, but the Bulldogs rode the wave of Cavise’s uplifting three to a 9-3 surge that pushed the lead back to double-digits. Cruz returned the favor by finding more in position for a layup, then hit two more free throws to make the lead 56-47. Daniel again scored in the post, but Cruz answered with a floater, then hit one of two free throws to establish a 59-49 edge for the Bulldogs.

After Moore hit one free throw on the other end, Cruz finished a pass from Lydon to make it 61-50. The teams traded baskets by Daniel and Cavise and Cruz closed out his 23-point game with a layup off a bounce pass from freshman Clint Martin that pushed Rumson’s lead to 65-52. Martin then hit four consecutive free throws to put the game on ice.

Martin contributed eight points, four rebounds, four assists and two steals while Moore supplied nine points, four rebounds and three assists for Rumson. Ahmann scored just two points, but backed up Cruz’s effort on the boards with seven rebounds.

While Rumson did not have an answer for Daniel and watched the 6-foot-7 Perkins show off his shooting (three three-pointers) and athleticism (two dunks, eight rebounds) in posting 17 points, Rumson’s defensive effort shut down Middle’s top two scoring options over the course of the season. Junior Mason Murawski (13.4 points per game) scored just three and Moore (12.4) put up only five, with the two combining for just two field goals. Both of those field goals came on three-pointers in the fourth quarter.

Rumson opened the season with nine straight wins despite Cruz missing the first four games of the season due to injury. During that streak, Cruz sustained an eye injury that knocked him out for five more games, which started a 5-8 stretch that included a loss at rival Red Bank Regional and culminated with a 60-48 loss to Holmdel in the Shore Conference Tournament round of 16. Cruz did not play during the SCT due to injury, his third string of multiple games sidelined due to injury.

Since the SCT loss, Rumson has won six straight, including five in a row during the NJSIAA Tournament. Cruz is the lone player on this year’s team who started on each of the past two Rumson teams, which reached the Central Jersey Group II final and lost at Manasquan each year.

Sourlis, meanwhile, has a chance to add to his legendary legacy of coaching in the Shore Conference. He already built the Rumson girls program into a state championship factory during a 30-year tenure as coach, which included 14 sectional titles and five overall state titles. That standard will be nearly impossible to meet, but leading the Rumson boys to their first title would be a major résumé bullet for a coach that has won more than 700 games and is just the third coach in Shore Conference history to lead both a boys team and a girls team to a sectional championship. Only one — Ken O’Donnell at Neptune — has led both the boys and girls teams at the same school to an overall group championship.

“It’s really special for me because I really want them to experience what I have gotten to experience a number of times because of our kids playing their butts off for us,” Sourlis said. “This is not easy. Winning is not an accident. Our kids weren’t going to be denied again. This accomplishment is something they have chased and on Saturday, they are going to try to make it legendary.”