#image_title

End of an Era: Santucci, Central Go Down Fighting in Season-Ending Loss

Matt Manley|March 6, 2025|Last Updated March 6, 2025

MEDFORD — When the final buzzer sounded at Lenape High School Wednesday night, the players on the Central Regional boys basketball team walked off the floor for the final time in 2024-25 while facing the harsh reality that the specific history they wanted to make on behalf of their school will remain unmade for several key graduating seniors.

Central’s players made no bones about it: their goal was to reach the school’s first boys basketball NJSIAA sectional final and bring home the championship trophy.

That dream ended with a 65-60 loss at second-seeded Lenape in the South Jersey Group IV semifinal, but in closing the book on the 2024-25 season, the departing Central senior class remains unrivaled in the history of the program. The Golden Eagles tied a school record for wins a season ago with 22, then broke that record this season by winning 24 games while reaching the Shore Conference Tournament quarterfinals and NJSIAA sectional semifinals for the second straight year. Central has never been past either of those rounds in those two tournaments.

“This group wanted it bad, and they have so much to be proud of,” Central coach Mike Clemente Jr. said. “They left a hell of a legacy.”

The senior class that helped Central win 81 games in four years — including at least 20 wins in each of the last three seasons — was a diverse, talented group that had multiple important contributors.

None of those seniors, however, stood out like Jaycen Santucci, who finished his career with one of his best postseason performances. While attempting to lead Central back from a 10-point deficit in each half, Santucci scored a postseason career-high 34 points while grabbing six rebounds and nabbing five steals. The 34 points were just two shy of his overall career high.

Santucci scored 26 of Central’s 34 points in the second half on Wednesday night, including 10 points in the final two minutes while desperately trying to keep the Golden Eagles’ season alive.

“It’s tough,” Santucci said. “We left everything out on the court. They made some great plays, they hit a lot of tough shots. All our guys here left it out on the floor. We didn’t give up until the last second.”

Lenape led, 50-40, with just over six minutes to play, when Santucci ignited a 10-2 run with a three-point play that chopped the deficit to seven. Senior Royalty Riley book-ended a free throw by Santucci with a pair of drives to the basket that cut Lenape’s lead to 52-48, then Santucci went strong for a finish at the rim that pulled the Golden Eagles within 52-50 with 2:20 to go.

The Indians responded with a critical three-point play as they broke Central’s full-court press to set up senior Nate Myer for a layup as he was fouled. Myer hit the ensuing free throw for a 55-50 Lenape lead with 2:06 left.

“They hit big shots constantly, all night,” Clemente said. “Every time we would make it a little close and we felt like we had some momentum, they would hit us with like five, six, seven straight points and that really hurt us.”

Santucci earned a trip to the free-throw line and knocked down both free throws to pull Central with three, but senior Mehki Carter got to the basket for another finish as part of a 20-point performance, giving his team a 57-52 lead.

Central came up empty on its next two possessions and Lenape cashed in at the free-throw line following both misses to stretch its lead to 61-52. Santucci kept hope alive with a three-point play, a drive to the basket and a three-pointer that cut Lenape’s lead to 64-60. He then earned a trip to the free-throw line with Central down, 65-60, with six seconds left, but came up short on the first attempt, which effectively ended Central’s bid for an improbable comeback.

Lenape’s Revenge

Central opened its season by beating Lenape, 60-48, in Bayville. Over the ensuing period of nearly three months, what was an inexperienced Indians team has grown into a contender to reach the NJSIAA Group IV final for a second straight season and is now headed to play in the South Jersey Group IV championship game for a fourth straight year. The Indians graduated five seniors from a team that lost to Elizabeth in the 2024 Group IV final, and freshman sixth man Caleb Lundy transferred to Archbishop Wood in Philadelphia, leaving a group of bench role players and newcomers to keep the winning tradition alive.

“It means everything to be here again,” said Carter, whose team will travel to top-seeded Cherry Hill East for Saturday’s sectional championship game. “We practiced. We worked for it. It’s good to see it actually come to reality. We’re going to the sectionals on Saturday.”

In the first game of the season, Central served as a reality check for Lenape. In the nearly three months since, the Indians have been trying to catch up with a Golden Eagles team that entered the postseason on the short list of teams that had a legitimate chance to reach the Group IV final from Central or South Jersey. According to Clemente, however, Central did not want to use a December matchup vs. a young team at home as a frame of reference for a road playoff game against that same team almost three months later.

“Honestly, that never even crossed our minds,” Clemente said of the first meeting between the teams. “This group was so focused on the goal at hand, and we were approaching it one game at a time. We actually looked at it as a completely new opponent. We have hung our hat on the defensive end all year and, for whatever reason — and give Lenape a lot of credit — they took it to us.”

“We learned about Santucci,” Carter said of Lenape’s early experience playing Central. “He is their guy. He had four or five dunks against us in the first game. We knew he was going to be their best guy, so we focused on him.”

Lenape came out fired up and built a 19-9 lead after the first quarter behind a fast start for Carter and sophomore Jaidyn Boyd, plus 8-for-13 shooting from the field as a team.

“They were hitting a lot of shots, our shots weren’t falling,” Santucci said. “There’s no excuses today. We could have stepped up in some other areas, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.”

Central Rallies

The senior trio of Jayson King, Royalty Riley and Santucci led Central’s first comeback of the game, with King hitting three of four 3-point attempts in the second quarter. King’s first two threes cut Lenape’s lead to 19-15, and after Carter responded with a three and a layup to push the lead back to five, Central closed the second quarter on an 11-0 run to go up 26-24 at halftime. Santucci and Riley each scored four points during the run and King hit his third three, which tied the game, 24-24.

“It’s a resilient group,” Clemente said. “They have always been, and it’s because of the way they handle themselves day in and day out. Every day, they take care of business, they do all the right things all the time, so it didn’t surprise me that they were able to come back when we went down.”

In erasing one 10-point deficit and nearly erasing a second in the second half, Central leaned on its high-energy defense. The Golden Eagles forced Lenape into 14 turnovers and had four players account for five blocked shots: sophomore Derek Roth (two), Santucci, Riley and junior Elijah Reeder.

“It’s what we have been leaning on all year: our defense,” Santucci said. “It always starts there. They were hitting a lot of shots. We switched up our defense a couple times trying to mess them up, but they adjusted. They are a hell of a team. They’ve got a great future.”

The Central run climbed to 12-0 with a free throw by Roth to start the third quarter before Lenape finally ended Central’s scoring run. The teams battled back and forth, and when the score was tied at 35, Lenape unleashed a 15-5 run that carried into the early part of the fourth quarter and built a 50-40 lead.

Boyd caught fire in the second half, during which the sophomore scored 17 of his team-high 25 points and shot 3-for-3 from beyond the three-point arc as part of a 4-for-4 outing from deep. The last of his threes gave Lenape a 46-38 lead late in the third quarter.

Foul trouble was a hardship for both teams, with Carter stuck to the bench for the end of the second quarter with two fouls and ultimately fouling out late in the fourth quarter for Lenape. For Central, senior Aidan Graham spent most of the game on the bench in foul trouble, which took a shooting and ball-handling threat off the floor for the Golden Eagles and made it difficult for Graham to get into the flow of the game.

A Senior Class to Remember

Wednesday marked just the third time in program history that Central has played in a sectional semifinal game, and two of those appearances came in the last two seasons. Led by Santucci, this year’s senior class contributed to a program that went 81-27 over the last four years, won back-to-back outright Shore Conference division championships, reached the SCT quarterfinals three times and played in two South Jersey Group IV semifinals.

Four senior starters — Santucci, Riley, King and Graham — will graduate in the spring, leaving Roth and the 6-foot-7 Reeder as the only rotation mainstays returning for 2025-26.

“As hard as it was to talk to them in the locker room after the game for all that they have given to the program, I hope some of their accomplishments and the way they handled themselves rubs off on the younger guys,” Clemente said. “I told them not only how proud of them I was for what they did on the basketball court, with all the wins they accomplished, but just how they handled themselves. How they treated the young guys, how they were great leaders — the day-to-day things that nobody else sees that we see. They just did it with a lot of class, and they did it for a long period of time.”

As for Santucci, he graduates having completed four varsity seasons at Central on his way to a third straight All-Shore selection and second straight as a first-teamer. With 1,675 career points, he leaves Central as the program’s second-leading scorer of all time, trailing only 2,000-point scorer Jermaine Clay. In his final season, Santucci finished with per-game averages of 19.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.8 steals and 0.86 blocks.

“Talk about leaving it on the floor,” Clemente said. “All the seniors did and the whole team did, but to see (Santucci) have a game like that just proves how special of a player he is. Very rarely do you get to coach somebody that special, and he is up there.”

“We made it this far (two) years in a row, made it to the Shore Conference Tournament three years in a row,” Santucci said. “This season, we’re the winningest team in Central history. We made a lot of accomplishments, guys set records. Our team won’t be forgotten.”

Related Articles