Poor Offensive Showing Costs Chatham Boys’ Hoops Against Madison

In a game in which Chatham High School’s (N.J.) Boy’s basketball put forth a sloppy, uneven offensive performance, the Cougars wound up suffering a 56-43 defeat at the hands of Madison, the school’s area rival, Saturday night at home.

Longtime Chatham head coach Todd Ervin chalked up the defeat to its weak offensive performance, especially since the Cougars have been averaging nearly 72 points per game coming into the contest.

“Like I just told them, you play like we play, you shouldn’t be scoring in the forties,” Ervin explained. “So, we got to shoot better than that. We missed layups, we missed free throws, we missed open three pointers. It was just an awful performance, offensively. We just missed shots; we missed easy shots.”

However, Ervin did give credit to his defense for playing well and keeping them in the tilt, for the most part.

“I thought our defense was good,” he said. “I thought we turned them over. We got the pace we wanted. We just didn’t do anything on offense.”

Chatham (6-2) unceremoniously put itself in a 13-2 hole with 2:14 left in the first quarter. But the Cougars clawed back to close the gap at 19-12 by the end of the period.

Senior Quinn Burke opened up the second quarter’s scoring with a basket to bring Chatham to within five points of the Dodgers (6-1).

Baskets from juniors Nick Fabijanic and Sonny Arden, and a made free throw from junior Michael MacAniff sliced the deficit to one point at 28-27 with 1:57 remaining in the first half.

Cougar junior Marco Mannino sank two from the charity stripe to keep the game at one point (30-29) heading into the locker room.

Mannino hit a bucket to put Chatham ahead by a score of 31-30 with 6:35 to go in the third quarter.

However, a successful Madison three-pointer helped the Dodgers retake the lead at 33-31 with 5:25 left in the third period.

But MacAniff completed an and-one to put the Cougars again at 34-33 with a little more than five minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Much to Chatham’s dismay, Madison went on a 7-2 run to close out the period ahead 40-36.

But Cougar senior Will DesMarais gave his squad a fighting chance by nailing a three to bring the contest to within a point early in the final period.

Refusing to lay by the wayside, the Dodgers responded with one from beyond the arc to give them a four-point lead with 5:54 to go in the tilt. Madison continued to pour it on, making it 52-40 with 2:05 left in the affair.

By then, the game was out of reach for Chatham, as it suffered its second consecutive loss.

Junior Ryan Leach paced the Cougars with nine points in the losing effort. Three players–Burke, Arden, and MacAniff all scored seven points apiece.

Sophomore Ryan Nallin led the Dodgers with 16 points, while junior Gavin Randall and senior Michael Liddy contributed 14 and 11 points, respectively, in their victory.

Chatham travels to Delbarton tomorrow for a 7:00 p.m. matchup.

— Jerry Del Priore