No. 4 Mount Vernon defeated No. 1 New Rochelle 75-61 tonight at the County Center (BOX SCORE). The Knights will play No. 3 Poughkeepsie on Wednesday at 6 for the gold ball. The teams have met in the last three Class AA championship games. And Mount Vernon has now reached its 12th straight championship game and will take aim for a fifth straight gold ball.
Jabarie Hinds led Mount Vernon with 24 points, 17 of which he scored in the first half. Khalid Samuels added 15 points, 13 of them in the fourth quarter. Jarrel Marshall led a strong game by the three sophomores. He came off the bench to score a career-high 11 points. Marshall had just 14 points all season before tonight.
Of course, Mount Vernon lost both regular season meetings to New Rochelle, squandering 13-point fourth-quarter leads in both. Here’s coach Bob Cimmino on how his team reversed its fortunes:
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8 Comments
Josh,
Excellent coverage today. I know you are a tired man. How would one find the Pok-NR box score?
Statesman… Thanks. Here’s the Poughkeepsie-North Rockland box score.
HERE WE GO AGAIN, MT. VERNON VS. POUGHKEEPSIE! I really thought New Rochelle would get by MV this year and give Poughkeepsie a different target in the final. If I were superstitious I’d have to believe that Pok is jinxed by MV. I’ve lost count of the times that we’ve been beaten by MV in the last decade, sometimes by a lot and sometimes in heartbreakers. I have to give a lot of credit (grudgingly) to MV; they do know how to win, no question, as demonstrated again yesterday. I can only hope that Pok will bring everything they have to the final and that Mt. Vernon will be a little off.
Pok is jinxed! You could put 5 dwarfs with Mt. Vernon jerseys on the court and they would lose by 20. Game set match…. MT Vernon 68 Pok 45 Gause is overated. Dumb shots, no defense and selfish.
Gause had a bad night, luckily others stepped up and filled the void. I doubt he’ll show up that bad vs MV, I think he will be the x factor for Pok. When he is on NO ONE in Section 1 can handle him.
Statesmen, Knights,
I dont know if MV has the horses to just show up this year. That would be a grave mistake. I dont think Cimmino will let that happen though. I think this game will be close and wouldnt be surprised to see either team win. Dont know if PK has the defense to stop MV for 4 qtrs. We will see, they seem to have some lapses boxing people out as well. That could be there demise on wed. On MV’s side I dont see a real 2nd or 3rd option so it should be interesting.
Whitaker v Hinds lets see who holds up.
We could have some nice individual matchups in the next cpl of weeks. Wed Hinds/Whitaker regional final could potentially be hinds vs Mcmillan vs Whitaker.
I cant say it enough. If NFA and Pk meet in th regional final, that would be insane. When if ever did NFA and PK meet in a state game? If it happened it was 25 – 30 years ago. I know they had some epic battles in the early 80s but I believe they where regular season games.
Get it done PK!
I wrote a post last week saying how If New Ro beat MV I would root for POK for 2 reasons 1- I hate new ro 2- pok has come so close so many times in the last decade and then run up against MV only to come away empty. Well that option has gone away. I wil be rooting for MV again but if POK wins I wont come home and kick the dog the way I would have if MV lost to New Ro. Good luck Wed may the best team win and please let the refs stay out of the way and let the kids decide the game.
There is no way we lose to Pok. The refs will be intimidated by the Cimmino mistique.