Choice school Bound Brook reaches second straight state girls hoops final with all home-grown talent

Over the first 18 minutes of the Bound Brook girls basketball team’s state semifinal against Wildwood, senior center Janee’a Summers was limited to one field goal and two free throws as a pesky opponent refused to go away.

“At some point you can’t stay on her the entire game,” Bound Brook head coach Jen Derevjanik said. “So she’s (eventually) going to go off.”

Summers, who will take her 2,000-plus career points to the University of Maryland-Baltimore County on a full athletic scholarship, scored five buckets and doled out two key assists during a tide-turning run that the Crusaders used to pull away for an overwhelmingly convincing 78-54 victory at Deptford High School on Thursday night.

READ: Girls Basketball: Somerville's historic season ends with loss in Group III semifinals

Bound Brook (25-3) advanced for the second consecutive year to the Group I final on Sunday at noon at Pine Belt Arena in Toms River, where the Crusaders will have a rematch with defending state champion University, which moved on with a 67-38 drubbing of Emerson Boro in the other semifinal.

Caitlyn Morris (20 points) and Olivia Nilsen (16 points) complemented one another with their strong inside-outside games, while Jordan Todaro grabbed a team-high 13 rebounds and Diamond Tucker added 15 points.

The McCracken sisters, MacKenzie and Maddie, combined to score 50 points for Wildwood, which kept itself in the game in the first half with strong offensive rebounding to compensate for a woeful 9-for-37 (24 percent) shooting performance.

Rebounding – the opposition owned a 19-18 advantage on the glass at the intermission – was a point of emphasis for the Crusaders at halftime. Once it controlled the defensive glass, Bound Brook was able to kick its transition game into high gear.

“(Derevjanik) told us to not let them get those second and third opportunities that they did and to box out more and to just rebound so that we could have a chance on offense,” said Summers, noting that defensive rebounding ignited the tide-turning run. “Every game we just go on a spurt where a team really can’t come back as easily as they think they could, so that was our point where we just put them away.”

After Maddie McCracken, a phenomenal combo guard, drained a 14-foot jumper to help Wildwood close to 36-24 early in the third quarter, Bound Brook responded with a 17-6 run during which Summers scored three consecutive buckets, ignited two fastbreak layups with flawless halfcourt length outlet passes and converted an open jumper from inside the top of the key.

“I had a conversation with her after the last game because I felt like she was being doubled and tripled, but it’s been happening all year,” Derevjanik said about sensing Summers was getting frustrated with opposing defenses. “To keep her calm, I told her it doesn’t matter who scores at this point. It matters that you get the ‘W,’ and no matter what you need to do to get it, you need to do. I thought she made great passes tonight, she played really good defense and she rebounded the ball.”

Recognizing the game was out of Wildwood’s reach, Bound Brook’s loyal student section, which took a nearly two-hour bus ride to the state semifinal, began the “It’s all over” chant after a Todaro basket gave the Crusaders a 66-38 lead with 6:29 left in the game.

Wildwood (24-6) reached the state semifinal with a win over Haddon Heights, which missed all 23 of its attempts from beyond the arc in the South Jersey championship game.

The Wildcats were content to leave Bound Brook’s sharp-shooting Nilsen open while focusing their attention on Summers in the paint early. Nilsen made Wildwood rethink its strategy, draining two wide-open three-pointers and converting another jumper to score eight points in the game’s first six minutes.

“She takes pressure off Janee’a and the other players,” Derevjanik said of Nilsen, who used her near-flawless shooting form to finish with four 3-pointers. “She’s confident. We all believe in her and she believes in herself and she knocked down big shots."

All 14 players on Bound Brook’s roster were part of a middle school program which won back to back league championships during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

“I love the girls and I want the best for them,” middle school coach David Romancheck said. “I’ve been coaching some of them since third and fourth grade. They stick together and they just keep working hard. When they play together like that (against Wildwood), they can be unstoppable.”

The current senior class – which features three starters – were eighth graders in 2012-13 when Bound Brook’s varsity girls basketball team was mired in a 29-game losing streak and ended the season with a 0-24 record after being outscored by an average of 38 points.

Around that same time, two of Bound Brook’s winter sports programs started benefiting from New Jersey’s Interdistrict School Choice Program, designed to increase educational opportunities for students, allowing them to attend a State Department of Education-approved public school within 20 miles of their district of residence without cost to their parents.

Even though the school was not violating any NJSIAA or State Department of Education regulations, the Crusaders endured public criticism after their wrestling program won a 2014 state title with 11 starters who either transferred to Bound Brook or enrolled in the high school while living out of district. Two years earlier, seven of the boys basketball team’s 12 players – including four starters – were choice school transfers.

With much of the attention being focused on the wrestling and boys basketball teams, the girls basketball program was quietly developing into a state power under Derevjanik, a former WNBA player who teaches fourth grade in the district and took over the squad three years ago.

“People always talk about school choice,” Bound Brook Athletics Director Anthony Egan said. “That’s the easiest thing. People go, ‘Oh, well, look how good their (girls) basketball team is. School choice.’ I go, ‘Yeah. There’s not a single girl on this roster that is born and has grown up anywhere but Bound Brook.’ So call it what you want. They are a great group of players, they are a great group of young ladies, they represent the school wonderfully and we are proud of them every which way.”

Todaro’s mother, Doreen, who was a member of Bound Brook’s 1989 girls basketball team, the last to win a sectional championship before last year’s squad ended a 28-year drought, is also the borough’s recreation director. In that capacity, Doreen Todaro has played an instrumental role in developing the girls basketball program, and she hopes to keep the momentum.

“It was an amazing time,” Doreen Todaro said of the 1989 championship run, noting she continues to maintain close relationships with her former teammates. “They come to the games to watch my daughter play. I just have a passion for the game, so I think that carries over.”

Within the last three years, the district purchased and renovated St. Joseph, a parochial school in the borough with a full-sized basketball court, and the borough also equipped its recreation program with another full-sized basketball court. Previously, the high school housed the borough’s only full-sized basketball court for all grade levels.

“It was a necessity as our program kept growing and growing,” Doreen Todaro said of having three courts in the borough. “We needed a place to house (players).”

Many of the girls team’s current varsity players competed on Bound Brook’s first travel team, which began operating in 2012-13, and also competed on the AAU circuit. The borough started running clinics last year for children in kindergarten through second grade, an initiative which has grown to include 55 girls and boys.

“You have a group of kids that have been playing together since middle school,” Egan said. “You have a grade higher or lower, but it doesn’t matter. By the time you’re a junior or senior in high school, you don’t even have to look because you can close your eyes and know Olivia is going to be here or Janee’a is going to be in this position. It’s just that ultimate continuity.”