A chorus of shocked exclamations drowned out the two sharp blows Theo Sica delivered to the wall padding.
Sica, playing in Westfield’s season opener against Union, had just watched his potentially game-tying half-court shot bounce off the rim. The shot had initially appeared destined for nylon, but mere inches had prevented the game from reaching overtime. Now Sica was mad. So he slapped the wall twice.
He may have wanted to slap a wall after the next game, a loss to Union Catholic, or two games later, a resounding loss to Elizabeth.
But come season’s end, Sica and Westfield slapped less and won more.
Westfield finished the season 17-10 and 4-6 in UCC Watchung, losing narrowly to Union Catholic in the Union County Tournament quarterfinals and reaching the North 2, Group 4 sectional semifinals before losing soundly to Newark East Side. It was Westfield’s third consecutive trip to the sectional semifinals.
But the sloppy start to the season did not augur such success. Worried whispers intensified during the stretch of early losses, turnovers and lapses plaguing Westfield.
Then those whispers vanished.
Westfield beat Colonia, an eventual Group 3 sectional champion, and won its other two games in the Eric LeGrand Holiday Jubilee.
“All it takes is a couple in a row to get everything rolling,” head coach James McKeon said. “And the Christmas tournament did that for us.” The tournament, especially the win over Colonia, “changed our season,” McKeon said.
Then Westfield ripped off eight wins in nine games, the lone loss coming against Linden, the eventual North 2, Group 4 sectional champion.
“We really felt a shift,” TJ Halloran said, after the Colonia win. The Blue Devils recognized they could compete with anyone, beat anyone. The kernel was there. Westfield just had to reach it.
The Blue Devils entered the season needing to reconfigure their roster. Sean Logan had departed for Davidson to play Division I basketball. Several key players had also graduated. Questions bounced around.
A worrisome injury compounded the uncertainty. Back issues limited Peter Meixner, a four-year varsity player and this year’s senior co-captain alongside Halloran and Sica. And so it was that Westfield’s starting lineup on opening day comprised seniors Halloran and Sica, sophomores Zach Epp and Tyshawn Pearson, and freshman Jake Russell.
Young.
The rotation quickly gained age when junior Shane Sheehan returned from a minor injury. But Westfield’s patchwork lineup needed time to smooth the stitches in its fabric. Hence, perhaps, the rough start.
“We didn’t trust each other yet as a team,” Halloran said. “We didn’t really move the ball that well. We didn’t play together as much.”
The team eventually coalesced. And at the beginning of January, in a road game against rival Scotch Plains-Fanwood, before a packed house, that became rather obvious. Quicksand appeared to have grabbed Westfield’s ankles during a tepid third quarter—the Blue Devils entered the fourth quarter trailing by 10 points. Gloating noise swirled up from the SPF student section.
Westfield promptly demolished the Raiders in the fourth quarter.
The Blue Devils dropped 21 points, held their opponents to 7, and silenced the home crowd. “It was a crazy game,” Halloran said, calling it the most memorable of the regular season.
The powerful fourth quarter was a collective effort, but Sica played the main role in tugging Westfield to victory, scoring 26 points. That was a theme the whole season.
Sica led Westfield in scoring, averaging 14.1 points per game. Sheehan averaged 11.7 points and 8.9 rebounds, and Halloran averaged 8.9 points and a team-leading 4.4 assists. Other big contributors included Pearson, who led in steals with 3.3 per game, and Epp, whose 28 made 3-pointers stand second only to Sica’s 38. Noah Fischer and Russell also were constant presences, Fischer a stingy defender and Russell a burgeoning young guard.
Meixner, though, never returned to full strength. He played with “60 percent of a body,” said McKeon, who added that Meixner’s leadership and toughness nevertheless lifted the Blue Devils.
Westfield steamed through the back half of the regular season, losing close games to Elizabeth and Linden. But the Blue Devils limped into the sectional tournament. They lost to Union Catholic in the UCT quarterfinals, a wild last-minute sequence terminating a run that, without a minor miracle, would have expired a round later anyway against powerhouse Roselle Catholic.
Then came two sectional tournament tune-up games. Two losses. So that made three losses in a row heading into sectionals.
Westfield, the No. 5 seed, hosted Watchung Hills, the No. 12 seed, in the first round. And the season nearly winked out right there. Westfield escaped, 56–50, advancing to play SPF, the No. 13 seed.
What followed was, McKeon said, the most memorable game he’s coached—ever.
“That’s exactly why you come here,” he said. “Exactly why you play sports in this town is for that moment. And then beating them, of course, is great.”
Westfield 59, SPF 56.
It was a preposterous celebration of basketball fervor, a game on a Thursday night in February that likely will be forever stamped in the memory of the people who crammed into Westfield’s tiny gym for those couple hours.
The students lucky enough to procure tickets will grow old, move away, start new lives. But they’ll never forget that game. And certainly neither will the guys who played in it.
“That’s what you dream for as a kid,” Halloran said. “That was a hell of a game.”
Newark East Side’s upset of Ridge handed Westfield another home game, an opportunity to replicate the atmosphere and performance of the SPF game. McKeon said he “felt more confident about that game than the first two,” despite East Side, the No. 8 seed, being seeded higher than Watchung Hills and SPF.
East Side torched Westfield.
The Red Raiders heated up so much it seemed as if they’d plugged into the gym’s electrical wiring—it seemed prudent to roll in a generator in case they sucked the electricity from the building. East Side shot 50 percent from 3-point range and shot 67 percent from the field in the second quarter and 80 percent in the third quarter.
“We literally saw them on their best day,” McKeon said. “I don’t even think we played that bad.” But, he added, “that happens.”
And that was it.
A season marked by exhilarating wins ended with a deflating loss.
“Our whole goal was to win a ring,” Halloran said, “and we fell short.”
The perennial pursuit of the ring now falls to next year’s squad. Westfield will return a solid core, a core that this season built an appetite for victory unsatisfied by the sectional semifinal run.
“We don’t rebuild,” McKeon said. “We reload.”
