By: Redd E. Patrick
The Monroe High School boys’ basketball team is at a crossroads as it heads into Friday night’s contest at Colts Neck.
The Falcons, who started out the season at 6-1 and were winning games against quality competition in impressive fashion, are now 6-5 with a four-game losing streak.
Does this team have the makeup to bounce back to get things untracked?
"I don’t know, we’ll see," Monroe coach Pete LoPresti said. "My words can’t answer that, we’ll find out in our upcoming performances."
In their last four games, the Falcons have lost to two teams who are recognized on a state level in South Plainfield and Colonia. The loss to Colonia came on Wednesday, a 77-49 decision at home. Monroe had lost to Colonia on opening night, 69-54.
LoPresti can live with those losses, but a 52-40 loss to Woodbridge and a 48-47 decision to Bishop Ahr in between is what hurts.
"We lost to South Plainfield and you can rationalize that," LoPresti said. "That game should not make or break our season. But we came out against Woodbridge and played with no emotion. That was a bad loss. That game could have gotten us right back on track. Then against Bishop Ahr, we had the ball with 40 seconds left and a lead and turn it over. Then they make a basket with three seconds left. That one hurt."
As far as LoPresti is concerned, it’s easy to pinpoint the reasons for the four-game lull.
"All the things that made us successful, we’re not doing anymore," LoPresti said. "We were successful because we were defending people, we were pushing the ball up the floor and getting people into good positions. Now we’re stagnant. We’re just standing around, we’re not rebounding and we’re not playing with emotion.’
Against Bishop Ahr, A.J. Rudowitz led the team in scoring with 15 points, while Colin Horsch scored a career-high 11 with three 3-pointers. In the Colonia game, Rudowitz finished with 16, while K.J. Rolland had 12.
Following the Colts Neck game, the Falcons will have to come back less than 24 hours later to host New Brunswick.

