Boys Basketball: Gill St. Bernard's falls short in North Non-Public B final

PISCATAWAY - The Gill St. Bernard's High School boys basketball team saw its season come to an end Thursday night in the NJSIAA North Non-Public B final. 

The second-seeded Knights ran into top-seeded Roselle Catholic at the Rutgers Athletic Center, and while Gill St. Bernard's put up a valiant fight, in the end it was the Lions claiming the sectional title with a 57-40 victory. 

Roselle Catholic (26-4) will face Ranney in the Non-Public B final at 7 p.m. Saturday at RWJBarnabas Health Arena on the campus of Toms River North High School. 

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Gill St. Bernard's, which suffered season-ending losses against Roselle Catholic the last three years, won its fourth-straight Somerset County Tournament title this season and finished as Skyland Conference Delaware Division champions. Three of the Knights' five losses came against out-of-state competition, and two of the losses came at the hands of the Lions. 

"If you look at our schedule, I tell everybody we're not one of those glamorous teams that everybody's looking at," Gill coach Mergin Sina said. "We played three teams this year that were in the top 20 in the nation, we beat five or six of the top 20 teams in the state. The bodies we had, I'm very proud of these kids. We fought tooth and nail every game and we got to this point and I'm very proud of them."

Gill  (24-5) was again without senior center Brad Bundschuh, who was lost to a concussion earlier this season, and senior John Yoss, who suffered a leg injury against St. Mary's (Eliz.) in the semifinals. The Knights have played the last part of the season with only six players, and the void left by the 6-foot-8 Bundschuch was felt immensely Thursday night against a significantly taller Roselle Catholic team.

"John Yoss not being there for us today, at this point in the season, at any point of the season, hurt, because he's another kid who can stretch the defense out, and obviously we could have used another body, but we battled for three quarters," Sina said. "We kind of lost a little bit at the end a little steam, I knew that would be the case if we couldn't go up a little bit, so overall I'm really happy for the kids. I thought they really fought."

Down 13-7 after the first quarter, the Knights outscored the Lions 15-10 in the second quarter to pull to within one, 23-22, at halftime. 

After a basket by Alanzo Frink gave Roselle Catholic a 25-22 lead with 7:12 left in the third, a 3-pointer from Alex Schachne tied the game 25-25 with 6:08 remaining. The excitement was short lived however as the Lions went on an 11-2 run to take a 36-27 lead with 3:06 to play. 

A 3-pointer from Will Yarbrough cut the lead to six, 36-30, with 2:52 left, but Roselle Catholic answered with a 3 from Kahlil Whitney to push the lead back to nine, 39-30. The Knights' T.J. Chaney was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 3.7 seconds remaining in the third quarter, and hit two of three to shave Roselle Catholic's lead to 39-32. 

"They're big, they're long, we had some issues inside, I thought the kids battled," Sina said. "The only thing I would say early in the game, I think knowing the difference between the teams in size and strength, our guys would fight inside. Obviously we knew it was going to be a challenge with the size." 

Gill kept it close at the start of the fourth quarter, opening on a 4-0 run that pulled the Knights to within three, 39-36, with 7:08 left, but Roselle Catholic went on another 11-2 run to open a 50-38 lead with 2:52 to go. 

The Lions outscored the Knights 7-2 the rest of the way for the 57-40 final. 

Mulcahy finished with 15 points, seven rebounds, two blocks, one steal and one assist for Gill St. Bernard's. Schachne added nine points, two rebounds, one assist and one steal. 

Whitney scored a game-high 19 points for Roselle Catholic, including his 1,000th career point in the first quarter. Ithiel Horton scored 15 points, and Frink recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Naz Reid, who has averaged 14 points a game this season, was held to only four points. 

"It's unbelievable, they really bought into team play, every day in practice they work their tails off, they grinded out a season pretty much with a six-man rotation," Sina said of his players. "Once Brad went down, we've been playing pretty much for six to eight weeks with six kids, and it got harder at the end of the year,  and we kept on finding a way to win games. Our last loss was to Montverde (Fla.), so I'm very, very happy and very proud."

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