St. Patrick's coach Kevin Boyle can only imagine what would might have happened if Costner had attended Sonny Vaccaro's event since the center scored 31 points to lead West Orange's Seton Hall Prep to a 63-60 win for the State crown Wednesday at Continental Airlines Arena. The Pirates had been down by as many as 15 points in the second quarter.
St. Patrick's (Elizabeth) got off to a quick start, aided by an uncharacteristic seven turnovers by SHP, as the Celtics took a 19-6 first quarter lead and a 30-21 edge at the break.
Seton Hall coach Bob Farrell pumped up his team in the dressing room, especially Brandon Costner who added 12 points in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth which included 8-for-10 from the charity stripe. He also canned all of Prep's five three-pointers!
Seton Hall (30-1) got their first lead of the game, 46-44, on Harvard bound Andrew Pusar's basket, the last score of the third period. The teams tied four times in the final period, the last one broken by two Costner free throws putting the Pirates up for good, 60-58. Costner's total of 31 points tied for fourth best in state tournament history. Pusar also hit double figures for Seton Hall, ranked #10 in the latest Scout.com poll, with 14 points.
St. Patrick's, Scout.com's #9, was led by junior big man Derrick Caracter with 23 points and 15 rebounds. Classmate Corey Fisher added 10 points.
Note: The top New Jersey school in the latest network rankings is St. Benedict’s Prep (Newark) at number 8 via their 71-61 win over The Peddie School in the Prep A championship game. (Latest Poll)
Here's our affiliate PackPride's earlier report on the game. Please click here.
Woodrow Wilson (Camden) topped St. John Vianney (Holmdel) 64-45 in the N.J. girls final.
Story compiled from a variety of online newspaper sources, including: