VIDEO: Raiders battle to the finish despite early key injury but just miss reaching state title game

Posted: March 11th 2025

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

DEPTFORD – The players on the Ocean City High School boys basketball team tried mightily to carry themselves and their fallen leader to the state championship game.

The Raiders fell a possession short.

Colts Neck rallied from a 10-point third-quarter deficit and got the winning basket with 17.7 seconds remaining to nip Ocean City, 47-45, in a South Jersey Group III semifinal game at Deptford High School Tuesday evening.

Trailing by a point, Colts Neck’s Dillon Younger banked in a difficult layup from the right side of the lane to give his team a 46-45 lead. Ocean City turned the ball over on its next possession and Colts Neck’s Bryce Belcher made a free throw with 5.4 seconds remaining. Ocean City then missed a heavily contested three-point shot from the right wing as time expired.

Ocean City, which had won its first South Jersey championship since 1999 last weekend, played nearly the entire game without senior standout point guard and leading scorer Ben McGonigle. McGonigle reinjured the same ankle that had been giving him intermittent trouble throughout the season on the first possession of the game and did not return.

“To lose him at that point in time right away, it was a real punch to the gut,” Ocean City coach John Bruno said. “I told the kids that if they wanted motivation, then go win it for No. 2.”

Junior Dean Lappin moved to the point guard position and performed admirably. He finished with 11 points, five assists and three steals. His three-pointer midway through the third quarter gave Ocean City its largest lead at 34-24.

But Colts Neck rallied over the latter part of the third quarter and most of the fourth. Dan Buoncore gave Colts Neck its first lead since midway through the second quarter when he scored with 3:10 remaining, only to see Ocean City’s Tighe Olek answer quickly down the other end. Lukas Sloane scored with 2:37 to go to put Colts Neck ahead again, but Ocean City’s Josh Lenko responded with a basket to give the Raiders a 45-44 advantage with 2:05 to go. The score remained that way until Younger’s basket put the Central Jersey champions ahead for good.

“We had a lead for a long time and then we had a chance to win it,” Bruno said. “But they made a play and we didn’t. They just made one more play than us.”

For Ocean City (22-7), the loss ended one of the most successful seasons in program history and certainly one of the best under Bruno, who completed his 36th season as coach and holds a career record of 512-399. 

The Raiders were expected to be facing a rebuilding season after four starters graduated from last season’s 26-win team that reached the South Jersey title game. But thanks to the leadership, heady play and scoring of McGonigle and the quick maturity of a group of players who mostly competed at the junior varsity level a season ago, the Raiders emerged as one of the top teams in the Cape-Atlantic League. They then went on a wild run through the sectional playoffs, scoring an overtime win over Seneca before rallying from a 13-point deficit to beat Absegami in the respective quarterfinal and semifinal rounds. The team went on to claim its first sectional title in 26 years with a rather convincing 13-point win over Timber Creek last Friday.

Tuesday’s loss also ended the career of McGonigle, who could only watch and cheer from the sideline – his foot elevated and wrapped with a large bag of ice – as his teammates did all they could to prevail but fell just short. 

“I’m disheartened for Ben,” Bruno said. “This is what he’d worked for all offseason, all during the season. He was waiting for this moment, a chance to be in the state final, which is something that was totally not in our mind at the beginning of the season after losing who we had last year. To think we had a chance really says something about our effort, not only tonight but for what every one of these guys did for us all season long.”

Sloane scored 17 points and Buoncare added 10 points for Colts Neck (19-9), which will play for a state title for the first time in program history this weekend at Rutgers University.

Junior forward Luke Tjoumakaris shot 10 for 13 from the field and scored a game-high 21 points for Ocean City. He also had eight rebounds.

“You can’t take anything away from the effort,” Bruno said. “To lose arguably our best player and then hang with a team that has a very good player and is playing in the state semifinal, hats off to our guys for battling as long as they did.

“You can look back at many different things throughout that game but all I’m going to remember is all that heart our guys played with all the way throughout the entire game.”

John Laudenslager, proudly wearing his 1964 Ocean City High School boys basketball state championship jacket, salutes the flag during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" ahead of the Raiders' state Group III semifinal game against Colts Neck.