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MIDDLETOWN – Chris Champeau sees plenty of similarities between the current installment of the Rumson-Fair Haven boys basketball team and the Bulldogs team he coached to the Shore Conference Tournament championship game in 2011, and he has made sure to draw those comparisons around his team.

Now that the Bulldogs are headed back to the SCT final, Champeau would like the similarities between 2015 and 2011 to end with Wednesday night’s win.

Rumson turned in a throwback defensive performance Wednesday night at Collins Arena on the campus of Brookdale Community College, good enough to beat Neptune, 37-29, and punch a ticket to the SCT championship game at 8:30 p.m. at Monmouth University.

Senior Thomas Famulary dribbles around Neptune's Kerry Kirkwood during Rumson's win over the Scarlet Fliers on Wednesday. (Photo by Ray Richardson)
Senior Thomas Famulary dribbles around Neptune's Kerry Kirkwood during Rumson's win over the Scarlet Fliers on Wednesday. (Photo by Ray Richardson)
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Rumson will play in its second SCT final in five years and will take on top-seeded Christian Brothers Academy looking to finish what the 2011 team could not when it lost to Raritan in the championship game four years ago.

“We’ve played two games here (at Brookdale) each time and not only did we win them all, but we won all of them as the higher seed,” said Champeau, who led the Bulldogs to the final as a No. 13 seed in 2011 and now as a No. 11 seed. “It’s been a pretty similar run when you think about how we got here. We have that dynamic guard, we’re playing great defense, giving maximum effort on every possession.”

Just as the 2011 team centered around guard Kevin Alter – currently a senior on the U.S. Naval Academy team – this year’s team operates around junior guard Brendan Barry, but Rumson has not relied as heavily on Barry’s scoring as it did during the regular season. Barry scored a game-high 12 points Wednesday – the third game out of four during the SCT in which he scored 12 points – and shot only 4-for-14. In Rumson’s four SCT wins, Barry is averaging 13.7 points per game after averaging 23.2 during the regular season.

“We’ve been playing great together as a team all year, and I never feel like it’s all on me,” Barry said. “Our primary focus tonight was on the defensive end, so we weren’t that worried about who was going to score our points.”

Once again, senior Morgan Maguire stepped up as a second scorer with 10 points to go with seven rebounds – four of which came on the offensive end. Seniors Thomas Famulary and Alex Geiger each scored just five points, but were both instrumental in keeping Neptune’s twin backcourt of Kerry and Keishawn Kirkwood to a combined three points while also helping out on the glass.

“At the beginning of the year, (Barry) was pretty much our whole offense,” Maguire said. “You would think we would need him to score for us to keep winning, but we’ve been able to spread it out, get other guys open looks and hit enough of them. When you defend like we have, there’s not as much pressure to make every single shot.”

Morgan Maguire scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds in Rumson's win over Neptune on Wednesday. (Photo by Ray Richardson)
Morgan Maguire scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds in Rumson's win over Neptune on Wednesday. (Photo by Ray Richardson)
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Neptune’s starting lineup combined for only 16 points, with senior Sean McMillan matching Barry with 12 points while also guarding Rumson’s leading scorer when both were on the court. Sophomore Barry Brown led Neptune’s starters with 10.

The Bulldogs held Neptune to 12 second-half points and hounded the Scarlet Fliers into 10-for-43 shooting (23 percent) for the game. Rumson also limited Neptune to five offensive rebounds, two of which came on Neptune’s final possession of the game with the Bulldogs already on their way to a win. Neptune did not grab a single offensive rebound in the first half, which could be attributed, in part, to two early fouls that sent leading rebounder Micah Kerr to the bench.

“We had a stat on them that they get close to 50 percent of their scoring on putbacks and second-chance points,” said Champeau, whose team outrebounded Neptune 36-28 overall and 8-5 on the offensive glass. “I told the guys that if we could keep them to under 10 offensive rebounds and six points or less off that, we’d win the game.”

“We know how well they crash the boards so we were all focused on boxing out our man and attacking the ball in the air,” Maguire said. “Rebounding is always a focus for me, so I just tried to get as many as I could.”

Rumson also limited Neptune to only 17 points in the first half, but did not muster up enough offense to seize control of the game until the third quarter. The Bulldogs began the third on a 12-2 run to take a 27-19 lead, including an 8-0 burst that broke a 19-19 tie. Maguire scored Rumson’s first four points of the run before Geiger buried a three from the left wing to give Rumson a 22-19 lead it would not surrender.

Barry then found a cutting Famulary for a lay-up to make it 24-19, followed by a long three by Barry to give the Bulldogs a 27-19 lead with two minutes left in the quarter.

Neptune pulled within three on a running bank shot by Brown to make it 32-29 with 1:49 left to play, but Rumson held the Scarlet Fliers scoreless the rest of the way, which offset a 5-for-11 showing from the free-throw line by the Bulldogs in the last two minutes.

Brendan Barry (3) met plenty of resistance from Neptune on Wednesday, but still scored a team-high 12 points in a Rumson win. (Photo by Ray Richardson)
Brendan Barry (3) met plenty of resistance from Neptune on Wednesday, but still scored a team-high 12 points in a Rumson win. (Photo by Ray Richardson)
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Rumson will now have to deal with a top-seeded CBA squad that dismantled Toms River North, 65-29, after jumping out to a 25-0 lead through nearly a quarter-and-a-half and 39-5 by halftime. Rumson is looking for its first-ever SCT title in its second trip to the championship game, while the Colts are after their 17th tournament title and first since 2010. Since winning its first SCT title in 1984, CBA had not gone more than three seasons without winning the SCT until this current four-year drought.

“When I first came back here after coaching in Florida, people kept telling me the most important thing I had to do was keep kids from Rumson from going to CBA,” Champeau said. “So I said, ‘Okay, then we’re going to hold a summer league, we’re going to have camps, we’ll bring some NBA players around,’ to try and make us as good as we can be. CBA is the best team in the area, so I was told, and I always wanted to play them. I guess I should be careful what I wish for, but it’s a great challenge.”

Finishing the job would mean Rumson will have gone through two teams that beat them during the regular season (Red Bank and Freehold Township), the team with more SCT titles than any other Shore program (Neptune with 22) and, potentially, the most dominant Shore Conference team of the last 30 years in the final.

“We’ve called this ‘The Revenge Tour,’” Barry said. “Red Bank beat us, Freehold Township beat us, coach (Joe) Fagan beat us when he was the coach at Jackson Memorial last year and now we want to show we’re the number one team by trying to beat the number one team.”

 

Box Score

Rumson-Fair Haven 37, Neptune 29

1

2

3

4

F

Rumson-Fair Haven (21-4)

10

5

13

9

37

Neptune (15-10)

10

7

5

7

29

 

Rumson-Fair Haven (37): Brendan Barry 4 2-2 12, Jack Luby 1 3-7 5, Morgan Maguire 4 2-5 10, Thomas Famulary 2 1-4 5, Alex Geiger 1 2-4 5, Mickey Schluter 0 0-0 0, Elijah McCallister 0 0-0 0. Totals 12 10-22 37

Three-pointers: Barry 2, Geiger

Fouled Out: Maguire

Neptune (29): Kerry Kirkwood 1 0-0 3, Barry Brown 4 1-2 10, Micah Kerr 1 0-2 2, Marcque Ellington 0 0-0 0, Keishawn Kirkwood 0 0-0 0, Sean McMillan 4 2-5 12, Jared Kimbrough 0 1-2 1, Oshane Curate 0 0-0 0, Scott Fields 0 0-0 0. Totals: 10 5-13 29

Three-pointers: Kerry Kirkwood, Brown, McMillan 2

Fouled Out: Kerr

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