The Colonia boys basketball team matched up against division opponent North Brunswick on January 11th to try and continue their winning ways and move up in the division.
Colonia came into this game riding a 6 game win streak and playing their best basketball game of the season. Many people did not expect this big winning run from Colonia. This is due to the fact the Patriots started the season losing the first three games. Junior Guard, Thomas Mitch, said, “After a rough 0-3 start, we thought it would be similar to last season. A season where we only won seven games. But one thing we will never do is give up. We come out every night and play our absolute best to get some wins.”
Losing these games could have caused some guys to give up, or even consider quitting. Junior Tim Rodriguez said, “Some began to question whether or not we would accomplish our goals for the year. However, in practice we kept working our tails off. We stayed the course and kept looking forward instead of looking back the rough start we experienced.” It is a good thing the coaches kept these players working hard because this team really started to get in a groove. Mitch said, “Losing these first three games made us hungrier as a team.”
This game against North Brunswick was a division contest, and one the players were the players were looking forward too. Colonia went 1-1 last year against the Raiders and were looking to improve on that. Rodriguez even said, “Coming into the year, North Brunswick was the division favorite and Coach Hall even told us that they were the most talented team in the division. So we were even more focused during preparation for this game because we knew that this wouldn’t be a cake walk.” This was high praise to the Raiders who also got off to a rough start, losing their first two division games.
The game was very close throughout the first half with North Brunswick leading Colonia 30-28. The team really turned it on in the second half and didn’t look back. Colonia would end up taking a commanding lead and ride it to a 53-43 victory. According to NJ.com, Junior guard Luke Valeriano and Senior guard Frank Lehman both had 13 points to help guide the Patriots to their seventh straight win. Junior center Chris Sica recorded 4 blocks to protect the paint and add to the great defensive game by Colonia. Mitch described the game plan by saying, “One thing we will always do throughout our games is to trust the process and our coaches decisions. Therefore, we stuck to our plays and trusted our coaches to get us the victory.”
Colonia currently sits at second in the division with clear goals on a White division title. The leader, Sayreville only beat Colonia by a basket in their first match up. Their other division loss came to Edison who had to win it in double overtime. Rodriguez said, “Coach J-Las always says ‘win the week,’ so we look at our schedule and take it game by game. Every division game is extremely important for us and conference games are also very important for the conference tournament. So every game holds equal value and our goal is to go out and win every single one.”
It seems like Colonia has a good approach to take on whatever the rest of the season brings. Although their winning streak has been snapped, Colonia is 7-3 in their last ten games, and still a red hot basketball team. They will be a force to be reckoned with come playoff and tournament time.
