Experienced Rogers aids PHS hoops

Little Tigers hope to get to .500 at tournament

By: Bob Nuse
   Joe Rogers is much more experienced than your typical junior.
   Already a captain, Rogers was a starting guard for the Princeton High boys’ basketball team a year ago. He played in all 22 games for the Little Tigers, averaging 10 points a game, which was second best on the team.
   This year, Rogers is a tri-captain for Princeton along with seniors Ross MacDonald and Matt Grosshans. He’s also one of just two players — along with MacDonald — with extensive varsity playing experience for the Little Tigers.
   "Ross and I are the two guys back with the most experience, so we have to be the leaders and we’re also the top two scorers," said Rogers, who scored 14 points when the Little Tigers topped Allentown, 62-47, last Friday for their first win of the season. "But we also know we have to help get the younger guys like A.J. (Dowers) and Brian (Dunlap) playing better as they get more experience."
   Princeton opened the season with a stretch of three tough games. After falling to defending Group III state champion Hamilton in their opener, the Little Tigers faced always tough Schalick and Trenton. They bounced back with a solid win over Allentown and were hoping to get back to .500 with a good showing in the Over the River Classic at New Hope-Solebury, which began on Thursday and concludes tonight.
   "We’ll be fine," Rogers said. "We know the three teams we played to start the season are three of the best teams we’ll play all year. We’re hoping to go to the tournament and win it and we’ll be .500 by the end of the (calendar) year.
   "We were in all of the games except for the Trenton game. Against Hamilton we were only down three late. Then against Schalick, it was a close game and they went on a 12-0 run at the end, so it was closer than the score looks."
   Rogers hopes his experience, along with MacDonald’s, helps bring along some promising young players. Princeton starts a pair of sophomores in Dowers and Dunlap, so the future looks bright.
   "We’ve got a young team, but we feel like we’ve got a smarter team than we had last year," said Rogers, who also plays AAU basketball for the Central Jersey Cougars. "Last year we had more talent than a lot of teams we played, but we made too many mistakes and that hurt us in games.
   "A lot of the new guys are the same age as I am and we’ve played together a long time, all the way back to when we were on travel teams together. I think this year we’ll have better team chemistry. We played a lot together over the summer and I think we play together well as a team."
   That summer experience has shown the players have a strong commitment to getting better. And Rogers thinks that progress might come sooner, rather than later, for Princeton.
   "We played in two different summer leagues," said Rogers, who was averaging 17.5 points per game through the first four games this season. "We played in a high school league and we also played in the men’s league, which helped us because we played against more physical teams. And then in the fall, the guys that weren’t playing a fall sport, we went to a league in Neptune and played once a week.
   "I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. I think we have a good team this year. We have some size and some good younger players. It helps having Dunlap to play most of the point guard and bring the ball up. The only time I have to do that is when he’s not in the game, so I’m not as tired as I would get sometimes last year."