VIDEO: Roaring Tigers roll into CAL quarterfinal round thanks to 40-point victory

Posted: February 12th 2026

The Lower Cape May Regional High School boys basketball team picked up its 19th victory of the season by beating Hammonton in a CAL playoff game Wednesday.

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

ERMA – The Lower Cape May Regional High School boys basketball team, regular-season champions of the Cape-Atlantic National Conference, lost a quadruple-overtime game to last-place Egg Harbor Township last Friday.

The Caper Tigers have responded by playing their best basketball of the season.

Lower continued its recent hot streak with a 72-32 dismantling of Hammonton in a second-round league playoff game Wednesday. The result came after excellent victories over very good teams in Kingsway on Saturday and St. Augustine Prep on Monday.

“You could see throughout our whole schedule, every time we’ve lost we’ve bounced back better and better,” said Lower senior John Fenrandez, who scored 18 points in Wednesday’s victory.

The win gives No. 6 Lower Cape May a rematch with No. 3 St. Augustine Prep in Richland on Friday. Lower posted a dramatic 66-65 win over the Hermits on Monday.

“After beating them Monday, they’re really going to be wanting revenge from that,” Lower coach Scottt Holden said. “It’ll be a Friday night, so I know we’re going to see a packed gym up there. I know they’re going to be ready and I hope we are, too.”

Lower, which almost quietly has emerged as one of the CAL’s more impressive teams this season, improved to 19-4 with the victory over the Blue Devils. Some league observers have tabbed the Caper Tigers as a dark horse to win the playoff tournament. But they’ll also have a major challenge simply to get past Friday’s quarterfinal round.

“Honestly, we’re going for it all,” Fernandez said. “We may be a smaller team (without much height) but we know what we can do and we know what we have to do.

“We have to go back there and do the same thing. We thought we could beat them last time and we went in there confidently. We have to do the same thing again.”

Lower was incredibly dominant against the Blue Devils (12-10). After the game was tied at 9-9 late in the first quarter, the Tigers reeled off a 25-8 surge to close to the half with a 34-17 advantage. The team then played perhaps its best quarter of the season in the third period, exploding for 27 points while conceding just seven to turn the game into a rout. After Lower established a 54-19 lead with 3 ½ minutes left in the third quarter, the remainder of the game was played with a running clock thanks to the 35-point mercy rule.

“I would definitely put these three games in there with the best we’ve played all season, along with maybe one of the Cedar Creek games,” Holden said. “We changed some things defensively recently and we’ve been really on point with that. And our offense has been going smoother than it has all year.”

Lower had assists on 20 of its 30 field goals.

“We’re playing more as a team,” Holden said. “We’ve pretty much always played as a team but every once in a while the individual thing would break out. But we’re getting away from that and we’re being patient more and more and that only helps us.”

Ty Bonner led the Tigers with 21 points, packing nearly all of his scoring into two quarters. After a scoreless first period, Bonner netted nine points in the second quarter before becoming a major scoring factor in Lower’s big third-quarter run. He also dished six assists to tie Ryan Mallon for team best.

Cole Sederland added 10 points and Jose Ramos chipped in nine.

Lower made nine three-pointers in the win.

Greg Smith, who entered the game averaging 19.1 points per game, led Hammonton with 11 points.

With the win, Holden’s career record moved over. 500 at 206-205. He’s in his 16th season in charge.