The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The Franklin High School boys’ basketball team’s winning streak is now at seven, thanks to the fast-paced 58-54 win over Somerville on February 3.
The squad’s six seniors were feted before the game at Senior Night, and all saw significant playing time.
The victory didn’t come easily, though, and Coach Tony Menta noted that it wasn’t the team’s best performance.
“It’s high school basketball, they make mistakes,” he said. “We’ll take the win.”
Franklin fell victim at times to Somerville’s three-point game; the visitors scored half of their 54 total points from downtown.
After battling to a 17-14 lead after the first quarter, the Warriors fell even at 12 in the second and walked off the court at halftime with a 29-26 lead.
Franklin outscored Somerville in the third quarter, 14-11, but dropped the final frame, 17-15.
Cameron Snowdon led all FHS scorers with 17 points. He also had eight rebounds, four assists and a steal.
Powered by 12 points from outside the arch, Jake Novielli scored 14 points and had two rebounds and an assist.
Daniel Okafor recorded a double-double, scoring 10 points – including some key power put-ups under the basket – 12 rebounds and four blocks.
Jahlil Williams scored four points, with one rebound and an assist.
Samuele Mattia scored three points, with a rebound and three assists.
Juniors Elisha Brown and Cam Brown had five points each, with Elisha Brown grabbing five rebounds, eight assists and five blocks, and Cam Brown getting two rebounds, three assists and a steal.
“It feels pretty good to win seven in a row,” Menta said.
He said Senior Night forced a different rotation.
“It took us a while to get into a rhythm,” he said.
“The truth is we need to play better than we played tonight,” he said. “The last six, we played really, really good basketball, sound basketball. Tonight, we played not with the highest IQ. We made some silly mistakes.”
Menta said the next two games will be “tune-up” games for the upcoming tournaments.
“We picked up South River, they’re 20-1,” he said. “And Newark Tech next week, who’s 14-4, so we challenge the kids and get them ready for the tournaments.”
With the win, the Warriors improve to 13-8 overall and 7-4 in the Skyland Conference.
Here are some scenes from the game:
