Photo by Sean Keough
The Ramapo Roadrunners men’s basketball team hosted the William Paterson Pioneers on Tuesday at the Bradley Center for their second New Jersey Athletic Conference game of the 2014-2015 season. They lost a highly competitive matchup 64-61.
“It’s our biggest rivalry since I’ve been here,” said Ramapo’s 17th year head coach Chuck McBreen. “You’re talking about two of the top programs in the state of New Jersey over the last thirteen years so at the end of the day anytime the two of us are going to get together, it’s going to be a battle.”
The Roadrunners held a 32-27 edge in a seesaw first half as they shot seven for 10 from three-point territory led by freshman forward Christopher Moseley, and sophomore forward Jermaine Peart and forward/captain Frank Nock. Peart and Moseley combined for 16 points, six for six from the field, and four for four from three-point land in the first half, while Nock shot 63 percent from the floor, including a three for three showing from beyond the arc.
The two teams traded basket after basket in the second half, resulting in a 61-61 tie with a minute and a half to go in the game. However, William Paterson sophomore guard Turrell McClendon found freshman Terik Bridgeman for the go-ahead dunk to help the Pioneers take the lead for good.
Nock led the Roadrunners with 18 points, followed by Peart’s 14 points and Christopher Moseley’s 11. Meanwhile freshman guard James Long led the way with five assists. The Roadrunners finished the game with a 45 percent shooting average.
For the Pioneers, Bridgeman had a team high of 16 points with junior Bright Mensah, sophomore Zach Frick and senior Jaques Conceicao each contributing 12 points. William Paterson shot 45 percent from the floor. Mensah secured a double-double with 13 rebounds.
Postgame, Nock said that he believed that shooting 14-20 (70 percent) from beyond the arc was what kept Ramapo in the game.
“It helped us a lot,” said Nock. “I think we shot way over 50 percent so it helped a lot because we shot 20 of them.”
The Roadrunners returned to action after a bit of a break for Thanksgiving with a game against Kean University yesterday.
“Well, we have Thanksgiving break right now,” said Coach McBreen. “We have a couple days off tomorrow and Thursday. We’re back to the drawing board on Friday and we’ll have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to get ready for Kean. They pose a different problem because they’re a team that plays zone so as a result of them playing zone, that posed a problem against Rowan the other night so we’ll have a number of days to prepare for it. Hopefully, we can get them ready and that we have to have a quick memory loss and forget about this one.”
pmcguire@ramapo.edu
