Title is first since 1980 for South boys
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
TRENTON — It was all about defense for the West Windsor-Plainsboro South boys basketball team.
All season long the Pirates have won because of their defense. And that was the case again Monday night when they topped Freehold Township, 48-41, to capture the Central Jersey Group IV championship.
The CJ IV title was the Pirates first since 1980, when they won the CJ II title.
”We had two main goals defensively,” said WW-P South coach Bob Schurtz, whose team finished the season with a 24-4 record after a 41-34 loss to Lenape in the state Group IV final on Wednesday. “One was trying to stop Matt Devine. He’s an incredible shooter and he killed us last year. I gave Dan (Balevski) the chore tonight and he grabbed the bull by the horns and he shut him down. He had five points. The kid was coming off games of 24 and 27 points. To be able to hold him to five was instrumental in our success.
”The rest of our game plan was based on feeding everything into Austin (Witter). If he had 11 or 12 blocks, he probably had 15 or 20 contests where they either missed or forced bad shots. I think that was a difference in the game. We won this game the way we’ve won a lot of games the last two years — on the defensive end.”
The Pirates trailed, 7-2, early but fought back and led, 18-16 at halftime against a Freehold team that was averaging 77 points a game in its three prior state tournament games.
The lead was 32-30 early in the fourth quarter when Witter scored to make it 34-30. From there, the Pirates made their foul shots and came away with a seven-point win, which for a team that needed buzzer-beaters to force overtime in its two previous wins probably seemed like a blowout.
”It didn’t seem as tough as the other two games for some reason,” Balevski said. “When Coach told me I was guarding Devine, I knew he was a very good scorer. He was averaging 25 points a game in the post-season. I knew I could not let him score. A key for us winning the game was stopping him. He only had five points and we came away with a great win.
”Defense is our No. 1 thing that Coach always talks to us about. Defense wins games. If we play good defense the offense will come by itself. We just focus on playing good position defense, staying in front of our guys and getting stops.”
It certainly helped to have Witter in the middle. The senior finished the game with 10 blocks and 12 rebounds to go with his 16 points.
”The key was our defense,” Witter said. “Matt Devine averages 22 points a game and we stopped him today. Dan did a very good job on him. Our defense is usually pretty strong every game. I’ve been told if I am not blocking a shot I at least can alter it.”
The win put a stamp on a great season for the Pirates, who reached the Mercer County Tournament final and won the CVC Colonial Division title.
”It validates all the effort and hours over the summer,” Schurtz said. “I talked to them about this being a result of all those hot days playing in Ewing. Going to the Albright camp, playing in the fall league and the lifting over the summer. This validates all the effort they put in over that course of time. That is what I am most proud of. It’s a credit to the seniors that they were able to develop and accomplish this.”
And this one came without the drama of the last-second wins over Hillsborough and Sayreville.
”There was no better feeling than seeing them let us inbound the ball with eight seconds to go,” Schurtz said. “I didn’t know how to react. I just went down and talked to their coach. I’m just very proud of the way the guys played. I thought we executed the game plan perfectly and that was how we were able to come out with a victory.
”They scored 81, 77 and 75 in their last three games. To be able to hold them to 41 is tremendous. It was their lowest output of the season.”
It all came down to defense, which is what made this Pirates team the success it became.