St. Joseph basketball advances back to GMC Tournament final

MONMOUTH JUNCTION - The St. Joseph (Met.) basketball team has reached double digits when it comes to Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament finals.

The top-seeded Falcons (24-1) defeated fourth-seeded Woodbridge 48-40 in the semifinals on Wednesday night at South Brunswick High School to advance to their 10th-straight GMC Tournament final. St. Joseph won its sixth championship in seven seasons last year with a 56-48 victory over South Brunswick.

"It helped a lot that we've been here before," St. Joseph's Letrell West said. "We didn't let the hype get us rattled and were able to stay composed and come out here and play hard. A lot of our guys were able to contribute and we won."

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Woodbridge (18-5) didn't make it easy for the Falcons, as the Barrons held St. Joseph to one of its lowest point totals of the season, and lowest since the Falcons were held to 47 points against Neptune on Jan. 28.

St. Joseph led 38-33 after the third quarter, but the Barrons kept chipping away. After a free throw and a basket from Richie Greaves gave the Falcons a 41-33 advantage with 4:40 remaining, Woodbridge went on a 7-0 run highlighted by a turnover and basket by Harry Rutkowski to pull the Barrons to within 41-40 with 2:14 to play.

That's as close as Woodbridge would get, as the Falcons went to the line eight times in the final 2:02 and made seven baskets for the 48-40 final.

"It feels good, we worked all season to get to this one game, we want to win it and we know we can win it," West said. "We played a pretty bad game compared to the rest of the games, they came back but we stayed composed. We knew we were going to win the game, it was just a matter of continuing to play hard and not letting them take the game."

Up 33-26 with 3:38 left in the third after a basket by Greaves, Kemptai Person and Rutkowski scored back-to-back baskets to pull Woodbridge to within 33-30 with 2:21 left.

With 1:13 left in the third, Michael Granda hit a 3-pointer to put St. Joseph ahead 38-31, but Keshaun Henry hit two free throws with 51.3 seconds left to get within 38-33 after three.

St. Joseph led 12-9 after the first quarter and 27-20 at halftime. The Falcons went to the line 13 times in the first half, finishing with 11 points from the line. St. Joseph finished 21-of-25 from the line for the game while Woodbridge went 12-of-16.

For the Falcons, Letrell West led with 14 points and seven rebounds. Greaves finished with 13 points and Tyree Taganeca-Ford added 10 points and four rebounds.

Rutkowski scored a game-high 16 points for Woodbridge and pulled down five rebounds. Henry chipped in nine points and six rebounds.

"Our game plan was to keep him from going left, it didn't work out, he continued to go left," West said of Rutkowski. "But we were able to stop other guys so even though he got his points the rest of them still struggled so that enabled us to get the win."

St. Joseph will face third-seeded Sayreville in the GMC Tournament final on Friday 8 p.m. at Rutgers University. Sayreville defeated No. 2 South Brunswick 68-65 in the other semifinal on Wednesday. It will be Sayreville's first trip to the final since winning in 2000.

"Every team we play has been different, I don't know how they're going to approach us but we're going to come in and work hard, ready to win Friday," West said. "Our defense definitely allowed us to win this game, that's the only reason we won the game, defense we're definitely going to need on Friday."

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego