HMHS Boys Basketball: ‘Senior-Ity’ scores big
By Lauree Padgett / Exclusive to Haddonfield[dot]Today
Week of January 27:
It was an exciting (sometimes too exciting, right Leigh-Anne Guveiyian??) week for the Dawgs, who played a trio of games, two Colonial Conference matchups and one nonleague. All were noteworthy for different reasons.
First, on Tuesday, 1/27, the Dawgs hosted their fellow Liberty division foes, the Eagles of West Deptford. It was Senior Night and HYBA (Haddonfield Youth Basketball Association) Night. Usually, the gym is filled to the brim with young kids who are part of the HYBA, but I suspect the very frigid weather and the fact that many people were still digging (chipping, to be more accurate) out their cars and driveways kept the attendance down. I, in fact, was saved from watching the festivities on HUDL because my travel buddy was able to give me a lift.
On Senior Night, it’s not just the graduating players who are honored. Also recognized and appreciated are the members of cheer squad and the basketball managers who will be moving on in June. From eight seniors in 2024 to one lone senior in 2025, this year, there are six senior Dawgs: Chris Beane, Michael Douglas, Mike Mooney, Jack McKeever, John Scipione, and Chase Stadler. See separate report, dated today, on these engaging young men. If you go to games in person, you can pick up the basketball yearbook, which has lots of photos of the girls and boys teams (varsity, JV, and freshmen) and the cheer squad, along with comments from the head coaches and ads from local businesses (food establishments, medical services, and real estate agencies lead the pack) and proud family members. Proceeds (the programs are $5) go to the teams’ booster clubs.
The game itself wasn’t too climatic. Thanks in part to a pair of treys by Stadler and Douglas, the Dawgs were already ahead of the Eagles by 13 points, 21–8, after the first quarter. In the second quarter, Beane and junior Ryan Guveiyian led the offensive charge, so by the half, Haddonfield had more than doubled West Deptford’s efforts and was up 41–18.
The last 16 minutes were more of the same. The Dawgs’ stifling defense held the Eagles to 6 points in the 3rd and 7 points in the 4th. The final quarter proved to be the biggest scoring output for the Dawgs, who swooshed in 22 points, with 7 points coming off the bench. When the horn sounded (and it sounded faster than usual, as the “running clock” kicked in early in the 4th), the Dawgs had beaten the Eagles by 47, 78–31.
Michael Douglas and Chris Beane were high scorers, with 22 and 18 points, respectively. Chase Stadler finished with 11 and Ryan Guveiyian added 10. Douglas and Stadler each hit three treys.
Quarter Scores:
1st: Haddonfield, 21, West Deptford, 8
2nd: Haddonfield, 20, West Deptford, 10
Half: Haddonfield, 41, West Deptford, 18
3rd: Haddonfield, 15, West Deptford, 6
4th: Haddonfield, 22, West Deptford, 7
Final: Haddonfield, 78, West Deptford, 31
Player Scores:
Michael Douglas: 22
Chris Beane: 18
Chase Stadler: 11
Ryan Guveiyian: 10
JP Crawford: 5
Mike Mooney: 4
John Scipione: 2
Jack McKeever: 2
Ethan Miller: 2
Ozzie Barnes: 2
Two nights later, the Silver Knights of Sterling rode into town. These games are usually pretty high octane, but this year, there was another dimension: weirdness. To refresh your memories, when the Dawgs went to Sterling in early January, the Dawgs led at half by 5. In the third, the Knights came charging back and were up by as much as 8. Just as suddenly, or so it seemed, the Dawgs got their mojo back and when the third ended, had regained the lead, albeit by just 2 points. And in the final 8 minutes, the Dawgs poured 21 points into the net, holding the Knights to single digits (9) and won by 14, 61–47. I think I called it “whiplash.”
So, what would the rematch of the Liberty rivals hold? More weirdness. In my decades of attending games, I had not seen this happen before, but happen it did. After the buzzer sounded ahead of the game and both teams had walked off the court to their respective benches, the two refs headed over to where Jeff Holman runs the scoreboard and Mark Hershberger does the play-by-play. The refs leaned in and had quite a discussion with Holman and I suspected it wasn’t about the upcoming boys tennis season. Although who it was on was not specified, a technical foul was called on a member of the Haddonfield squad. (The Haddonfield scoreboard has a spot for a player’s number to be shown when a foul is committed. It also shows how many fouls the player has been assessed. No player number appeared.) I never got the inside scoop as to what exactly occurred, but everyone sitting near me agreed it must have been something that was said, as no one saw anything of a physical nature take place.
What all this meant was that instead of the usual midcourt jump ball, a lone Knight stepped up to the foul line and made both shots. That put Sterling up 2–0 before the game started. When the game actually began with all 10 players on the court, the Knights also got possession of the ball, which is the norm after a technical foul. Good “D” along the sidelines forced a turnover, and Ryan Guveiyian was fouled trying to score. He made 1 of 2 from the line, on its possession, Sterling did the same, and then during the Dawgs’ next trip up the court, Guveiyian went up and in, tying the game at 3 with 6:13 on the clock.
The next point of the game also came from the foul line and also from Guveiyian. He put the Dawgs up by 1, 4–3, but Sterling got that 1-point lead back on a 2-pointer. John Scipione scored for the Dawgs to make it 6–5, Haddonfield, but Sterling did the same to go back up by 1, 7–6, with 4:46 left in the period. Guveiyian got a steal, the Dawgs did not score, but this time Scipione plucked the ball away and passed it to Chris Beane, who drove in the lane, scored, and was fouled. His shot from the line with 3:42 on the clock gave the Dawgs a 2-point, 9–7, edge.
After the Knights did not score, Guveiyian was fouled for the third time and both shots were good from the line, pushing the Dawgs’ advantage to 4, 11–7, with just under 3 minutes to go. That would be the Dawgs’ last points of the first, as Sterling scored 5 straight to take a 1-point, 12–11, lead into the second.
The next 8 minutes were not very pretty for Haddonfield. It wasn’t that Sterling went on scoring frenzy, as the Knights only put 8 on the board. It was that they held the Dawgs to one basket, which came off the opening inbound, by Douglas, which put the Dawgs up 13–12. Neither team scored for about 90 seconds, then Sterling went ahead again, 14–13, at the 6:02 mark. A foul shot by Jack McKeever tied it at 14 with 4:35 remaining in the half. After that foul shot, as they had done in the 1st quarter, Sterling closed out the 2nd on a run, this time putting 6 on the board. When the teams left the court at the half, the Dawgs were trailing by 6, 14–20. And it wasn’t that anyone was making bad shots. The majority of the layups looked good from a mechanical point of view, they just weren’t getting the roll into the net. Dawg fans were hoping that wouldn’t remain the case in the second half.
Sterling had the opening inbound to start the 3rd. Neither team scored the first few trips up and down the court, but with 5:57 on the clock, Scipione knocked down a 3, closing the Dawgs’ gap to 3, 17–20. After Sterling’s shot missed, Guveiyian pulled down the board, and Douglas got his team to within 2, 19–20 with 5:33 on the clock. After an out-of-bounds was called on Haddonfield and overruled (to the delight of the Dawgs’ fans, who had not been happy with several of the refs’ calls thus far), the Dawgs didn’t score, but Douglas secured an offensive board. This time, Mike Mooney drove into the paint, and the Dawgs finally were ahead again, 21–20, with 4:53 on the clock.
Chris Beane pulled down a defensive board under the Sterling basket, and Mooney went up and in once more, this time off a dish from Scipione. Mooney nearly stole the ball, and a few seconds later, Douglas did, and his basket off his offensive rebound put the Dawgs in front 26–20, with just under 4 minutes gone in the 3rd. That meant that within a span of 4 minutes, the Dawgs had gone from trailing by 6 to being up by 6. Sterling would score the next 5 points, with a 3 getting them to within 1, 26–25, at the 2:02 mark, and then a few plays later after Mooney picked off the ball and scored, two Sterling foul shots got them to within 2 once more, 27–25. However, that would be as close as the Knights would get the rest of the night. The Dawgs finished off the quarter on a 6–0 run and were up by 7, 34–27, as the 4th began.
The 4th quarter was all Haddonfield. Defensively, the Dawgs kept the Knights at bay, holding them to 7 points, as they had done the previous 8 minutes. At the same time, the Dawgs had their best 8 minutes of the game offensively, putting 23 on the board. When the buzzer sounded, the Dawgs had turned a 6-point deficit at halftime to a resounding 23-point comeback, winning by a score of 57–34. Michael Douglas led Haddonfield with 16, and Chris Beane had 10.
Notably, the victory over Sterling clinched the Liberty title for the Dawgs. It is the fourth straight year the Dawgs have won the Liberty division outright.
Quarter Scores:
1st: Haddonfield, 11, Sterling, 12
2nd: Haddonfield, 3, Sterling, 8
Half: Haddonfield, 14, Sterling, 20
3rd: Haddonfield, 20, Sterling, 7
4th: Haddonfield, 23, Sterling, 7
Final: Haddonfield, 57, Sterling, 34
Player Scores:
Michael Douglas: 15
Chris Beane: 10
Ryan Guveiyian: 9
Mike Mooney: 8
John Scipione: 8
Jack McKeever: 3
Ethan Miller: 2
Jack Sporer: 2
I had to miss the Jeff Coney Classic matchup with at Rancocas Valley Regional High School on Saturday, Jan. 31 due to a family celebration. (My little great nieces Ana and Gwen are turning 4 officially on 2/2, and I had fun with them, even when they were pelting me with little stuffed rainbow unicorns.) Thus, I didn’t see the matchup between the Dawgs and St. Augustine. It wasn’t being streamed on HUDL either. As a result, I had to rely on my travel buddy (aka MTB). I had gotten it in my head that the game was starting at 5:30, so when I texted MTB for what I thought was an update, the game had already ended.
Here’s what I got to begin with: “52–51, we won on a Douglas 3 at the buzzer!!”
When I asked if it had been close the whole game, I was told, “We were up by 13 in the 2nd quarter, then Douglas got 3 fouls. They went up in the last minute … UGH. Beane fouled out [a very rare occurrence, I want to point out here], and the kid [the St. Augustine player] made 1 of 2 foul shots, setting up Douglas’s heroics.”
And then I got this longer text. As you will read, MTB really outdid the wrap from NJ.com, giving this summary: “Things looked so bleak, watching our lead dwindle away and then St. Augustine taking the lead and Beane fouling out. Douglas thought we were going to call a timeout out but [Coach Wiedeman] tapped his head, meaning for Mike to just keep going. [I am interjecting here that if you see the last seconds of the game, as I did from Leigh-Anne Guveiyian’s Facebook post, you can see Douglas tapping his head as well to spread the message to his teammates.] McKeever set a pick at the top of the key and Mike pulled up for a wide open 3 … Splash!!!”
And that’s how the Dawgs held on to win their third game of the week by 1 point!
While the write-up on NJ.com lacked all the details MTB was able to provide, I did get the quarter scores and player scores, which are as follows:
Quarter Scores:
1st: Haddonfield, 17, St. Augustine, 13
2nd: Haddonfield, 13, St. Augustine, 9
Half: Haddonfield, 30, St. Augustine, 22
3rd: Haddonfield, 15, St. Augustine, 16
4th: Haddonfield, 7, St. Augustine, 13
Final: Haddonfield, 52, St. Augustine, 51
Player Scores:
Chris Beane: 18
Michael Douglas: 12
Ryan Guveiyian: 10
John Scipione: 8
Jack McKeever: 4
Haddonfield now has a record 16–3, is 11–0 in the Colonial overall, and 7–0 in the Liberty division. This week, Gloucester City comes to town on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 7. Then the Dawgs have an early (4:00) away game at Woodbury two nights later. The week finishes up on Saturday, 2/7, when the Dawgs host Timber Creek in a nonconference contest at 1 p.m.