Freehold Township Remains Undefeated with 58-49 Win Over Red Bank Regional

Photo above: Head coach Brian Golub with Staklinski being interviewed after Thursday's win

RED BANK – Second-ranked Freehold Township used a 13-2 run to close out the second quarter and held off a pesky Red Bank Regional squad the rest of the way to win their 16th game in a row in a non-divisional game played on the Buccaneers home court in Red Bank.

The Patriots (16-0, 9-0) came out of the gate sluggish while the Bucs (6-8, 4-4) were on fire going 4-for-4 on 3-point buckets – including two from junior guard Devin Cooper - in the first four minutes of the game to take a 14-8 lead with just under three minutes left in the first quarter.

However, Freehold Township settled down and held Red Bank scoreless the rest of the quarter until Cooper scored with 22 seconds left in the half after buckets by Patriots senior forwards Stephen Staklinski and Ryan Zyskowski and junior guard Ja’Zeem Foster had tied the score at 14-14 with 55 seconds remaining in the quarter.

Freehold Township was just coming off a huge road win at No.6 Neptune on Tuesday routing the Fliers by 28 points. They now have an always important game with divisional rival Christian Brothers Academy today (Friday), so it’s conceivable they were looking ahead.

“It’s never easy, we grind every night,” Patriots head coach Brian Golub said. “We’re not one of those teams that walk into a gym and blow people out. We haven’t had a lot of easy ones; that’s not our M.O. We tried real hard to make sure it’s not (CBA) on our minds; they (Red Bank) shot lights out. They were hitting three’s and they weren’t normal three’s. When a team comes out like that and shoots like that my hats off to them, but we played well enough to get our win. I don’t like to think we were looking past anybody. We try real hard to play one game at a time, one quarter at a time, one possession at a time.”

The Patriots held the Bucs to four points on four free throws by Cooper in the second quarter. They then did a little bombing of their own as senior guard Bobby Weise unloaded three 3-pointers in the quarter and Staklinski added four points on two buckets as Freehold Township outscored Red Bank 15-4 in the quarter to take a 29-20 lead at the half.

“Coming in we knew they were a pretty good team and we didn’t overlook them,” Staklinski said. “We were just really sloppy, throwing it out of bounds on fast breaks and everything and we didn’t make the most of our opportunities. Some of us might’ve been looking ahead but I just felt we were sloppy, missed shots and could’ve made better passes.”

Zyskowski (nine points) and Staklinski (four points) accounted for 13 of the Patriots 15 points in the third quarter. However, the Bucs kept pace scoring 15 points of their own in the quarter as Cooper continued his torrid shooting with eight points including another 3-pointer and Freehold Township held onto a nine point lead, 44-35, after three.

Red Bank whittled the Patriots lead down to just six points, 50-44, with 2:28 left in the game behind some additional lights-out shooting by Cooper. He hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game, converted a three-point play after being fouled and sank a two-point shot to put the game very much in doubt at this point.

The Patriots hadn’t scored in a little over three minutes during Cooper’s outburst, but a Zyskowski bucket and two free throws by Weise gave the Patriots some breathing room and a 10-point lead with 56 seconds left in the game.

A highlight-reel slam dunk by Staklinski off a feed from Zyskowski put the game away for good and the Patriots escaped with a 58-49 win.

Although CBA (10-5, 5-4) is having a bit of a down year for them, they’ve won three in a row and are playing well. The game itself will be a huge test for the Patriots as the Colts would like nothing more than to knock their division rivals from the ranks of the undefeated.

“Playing CBA is always important for us,” Staklinski said. “We’ve only won once in our gym against them and haven’t beaten them many times so it’s always big; it doesn’t matter if they’re having a good year or a bad year.”

Staklinski finished with a team-high 20 points, three rebounds, a steal and an assist while Zyskowski added 11 points five rebounds, three assists and two steals. Weise had a big night with four 3-pointers and a pair of free throws for 14 points to go along with a game-high six assists, three boards and three steals.

Senior guard Ryan Cardone had a team-high seven rebounds to go along with six points and three assists.

Cooper finished with a game-high 28 points for the Bucs including four 3-pointers.

“There’s no goal here except to try to play the best we can every night,” Golub said. “If we take care of business we’ll come out with a W. Right now we’re just trying to stay focused and take it one at a time. We don’t count wins, we don’t count losses and we don’t look ahead of anybody. We got off to a pretty good start and it’s kind of snowballed. I’m pretty confident we’re not going to go undefeated this year and when it finally occurs we’re going to see what kind of character we have on the way we rebound from that. So, it’s a great start but we haven’t even won the division yet; there’s a lot of basketball left.”

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