by Alex Schwartz

Tonight was the biggest game between Mercer County opponents since the 2008 Mercer County Championship game that pitted Trenton Catholic and Trenton Central. Rising power The Pennington School Red Raiders hosted the established power in  the Trenton Catholic Iron Mikes in a highly-anticipated matchup of the county's top two teams. Both squads entered with one loss, as Pennington fell in an upset to Ewing (NJ) and TCA lost to St. Patrick's (NJ), both last week.

In my New Jersey Preseason High School Top 20, Trenton Catholic was #6 and The Pennington School was #18. The Iron Mikes, coached by Pennington alumnus Fred Falchi, were the favorite, but the Red Raiders were the home team and the defending county champs (note: TCA was not in the 09 MCT). The game featured somewhere between 11 and 14 Division I athletes in one sport or another, which is quite impressive for Mercer County. I was at Pennington for the big game, as were hundreds and hundreds of other people in the jam-packed gym.

Trenton Catholic scored the first points of the game on a steal and duece by Khalid Lewis El '11, but from there on out, Pennington took slight control of the affair. Anthony Gaffney '11 tied the game at two, and then James Anderson '12 nailed a three to make it 5-2. Despite play of Brandon Taylor '12 down low for TCA, the Iron Mikes trailed 12-8 at the end of the first quarter.

Pennington jumped on TCA early in the second quarter, leading to three timeout by Coach Falchi in under four minutes, the last of which came when the Red Raiders took an 18-13 lead. Afted TPS stretched the lead to 20-13, TCA ended the half on a 4-0 run, making it 20-17 entering the locker room for the break. During halftime it was announced that $2,800 had been raised to donate to the Haitan relief effort, which is truly great.

The Iron Mikes came out for the second half in a full-court press Pennington seemed rattled. Despite a few turnovers, Bernie Gurick's team was able to extend its lead to six, 28-22, but TCA had back-to-back buckets, including a nice tip-in by Drexel-signee Frantz Massenat '10. Harold Spears '10 drained a three off a pass from Keith Dearden '11 with under a minute left in the third to put the Red Raiders up 34-29, which was the score through 24 minutes.

Trenton Catholic opened the final quarter on an 8-0 run that included a three from Dondre Whitmore '10 as well as a tough bucket by Khalid Lewis El that gave the Iron Mikes their first lead since 2-0. After just missing two at the line right before, North Carolina State football-bound Dontae Johnson '10 hit two from the stripe for TPS to cut the lead to one.Pennington had possession of the ball under its own hoop with 1:04 to go, and after getting the ball to Harold Spears, the senior took it to the rack and finished to put his team up by one with under 50 seconds.

TCA was unable to score and then fouled Chandler Fraser-Pauls '11 with 19.9 seconds to play and the junior, who is 7 points away from 1,000, calmly hit both ends of a one-and-one to make it a three-point game. Whitmore then missed a three and Fraser-Pauls got the rebound, this time missing the front end of a one-and-one with 11.1 to go. Trenton Catholic had two good looks at a three in the final 10 seconds, but both were off the mark, and Pennington pulled the upset. TCA scored all eight of its fourth quarter points in the first 4:45 and TPS scored all six of its points in the decisive period in the final 3:10.

It was a great game between two of the top teams in the state of New Jersey and the top squads in Mercer County. Both teams played hard and it was a joy to see such excitement over a hoops game in this area.

BOX SCORE (unofficial)

Team         1       2       H       3       4       F    
TPS            12     8       20     14      6      40
TCA            8      9       17      12      8     37


The Pennington School
Harold Spears- 13pts, 2/5 3P, 1/2 FT
Chandler Fraser-Pauls- 10pts, 1/2 3P, 3/5 FT
Anthony Gaffney- 7pts, 1/2 FT
Dontae Johnson- 6pts, 2/4 FT
James Anderson- 4pts, 1/2 3P, 1/2 FT

Trenton Catholic
Dondre Whitmore- 9pts, 3/6 3P
Frantz Massenat- 7pts, 1/3 FT
Ron Paden- 6pts, 2/2 3P
Brandon Taylor- 6pts
Khalid Lewis El- 5pts, 1/3 FT
Markese Tucker- 4pts

Note- photo is of Harold Spears