Brutally difficult schedule toughened Middle, led to reward of South Jersey title

Posted: March 8th 2026

By MIKE SHUTE

For CapeAtlanticLive.com

CAMDEN —Throughout the 2025-26 season, Middle Township High School boys’ basketball coach LaMarr Greer put his team through the grinder, by design. The Panthers played as much top competition in the state as possible.

Five teams on Middle’s 2025-26 schedule landed a spot in the state Top 20 for at least four weeks, four of which found themselves ranked in the top 10 for at least one week. That gives you an idea of the competition, not to mention Cape-Atlantic League foes Ocean City (S.J. Group 3 champ and CAL Tournament runner-up) and Atlantic City (CAL Tournament champs and S.J. Group 4 semifinalist).

The fruits of that rugged schedule were harvested Friday.

Middle handled the pressure of a hostile environment for the second consecutive time in the South Jersey Group 2 tournament, earning a 67-64 victory inside Camden’s Clarence Turner Gymnasium — a place in which Middle had lost each of the last two sectional finals by a combined 60 points — to capture the sectional title for the first time in four seasons. The win allows Greer’s gang to advance to Tuesday’s NJSIAA Group 2 semifinal against Central Jersey Group 2 champion Rumson-Fair Haven, 5 p.m., at Monroe.
The Panthers were set up for their third straight shot against Camden by winning in another tough environment on Tuesday, winning inside Haddonfield’s unique gym.

“That schedule helped us 100 percent,” Middle Township coach Lamarr Greer said after Friday’s win. “And we’re so competitive that we just can’t keep coming up here (to Camden) and not change something. So that was the thing that we changed. We said we’ll make the schedule as hard as possible. Everyone is going to think we’re crazy. And it was hard. You know, we’re losing and everyone was falling apart but we realized we just had to stay together and understand each other and what we were trying to do.”

It was challenging. 

Middle had lost 11 games in 2025-26 entering Friday's game at Camden, including all five of those aforementioned games against Top-20 opponents: St. Joseph-Metuchen, Paul VI, Elizabeth, Christian Brothers and Lenape.
But Greer’s players understood what the process was trying to yield.

“The tough schedule definitely helped us prepare for a game like this,” said Middle junior big man Kanye Perkins, who put in a solid effort in the paint with 13 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two blocked shots. “You play those types of teams and when it comes to games like this, we’re ready to play.”

“I think it just all gets us ready for the state tournament and the (next round) that we’re about to go to,” said junior guard Mason Murawski, who knocked down five 3-pointers en route to a team-high 22 points with four rebounds. “We’ve played a tough schedule all year. We’ve played a bunch of top-10-ranked teams in the state and it all prepared us for this moment.”

Murawski was a big reason why Middle Township (18-11) built a 36-22 halftime lead behind a 17-7 second quarter in which Camden connected on just two of its 12 shots. Murawski hit four of his treys in the first half and had 14 points at the intermission. 

His overall effort was a huge turnaround from his performance in the same game and in the same location in 2025 when he did not score and pulled down two rebounds as a sophomore.

“Last year was a crazy environment and we did not like getting blown out by 30, especially two years in a row, by the same team so we definitely came into this game prepared. I don’t think the crowd really affected us very much.

“I believe I work on my shot enough that nothing really bothers me. The atmosphere was pretty crazy but I don’t let any of that bother me. We came here last year and it was the same deal, we just went to Haddonfield (Tuesday) and I didn’t let it bother me.”

There was a point though in the second half where Camden’s pressure certainly was a bother.

Camden (18-11) ratcheted up the defense, double-teaming the ball, forcing turnovers and creating easy buckets at the other end, rattling off a 22-8 run that tied the game at 46-46 after Mikah Hart’s 3-pointer just 13 seconds into the fourth quarter knotted the game for the first time since it was 7-7 three minutes into the game.

Middle then went on an 8-0 run over a 58-second span thanks to threes by Adam Bouabbache and Mikey Farrow as well as a dunk by Perkins to put Middle up 54-46 with 6:13 left. The final bucket of the run marked the second time in the game in which Middle dialed up a play that resulted in a Perkins dunk following a timeout. 

“Coach does a nice job of calling timeouts and getting us locked in,” Perkins said.

Greer didn’t hesitate to call timeouts and left himself with just one in the game’s final six minutes. But he just knew what his team needed.

“I knew that in this environment I had to calm them down a bit and I knew in the end if we had no timeouts, they’d be able to execute. I had faith in that. And (Camden) made a run. Alex Pace is amazing. We knew they were going to make a run but I called a timeout just to break it up and I trusted our guys to finish it in the end.”
And finish they did, hanging on despite Pace’s 14 second-half points. The Camden senior had a career-high 51 in the sectional quarterfinal against Camden-Eastside and was averaging 36 points per game in the state tournament. He finished with 22 points on Friday but Middle’s defense didn’t let Pace beat them.

“Yes, not letting Pace beat us was definitely part of the plan,” said Murawski, who scored six of Middle’s final 11 points in the game’s final 2:45. “It happened to us against Atlantic City and one of their guys (Don’Taye Thompson) got really hot. It could’ve been a similar situation where a player could drop 50 and beat us. That’s what happened against AC and we weren’t going to let it happen again.”

Junior Keyshawn Franklin (17 points) hit a three with :27 left to pull Camden to within 65-64 but Middle hit two of four free throws around a Camden turnover to pull ahead by three and Pace’s desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer went off the glass and rimmed out.

Senior Alex Daniel had a great all-around night for Middle with 12 points, five rebounds and seven assists. Chase Moore added seven points, nine rebounds and five assists in the win.