The St. Joseph Celtics JV boys maintained their winning ways this past weekend. The Team faced a tough opponent in St Helens from Westfield. St Helen's came out of the gate red hot. Hitting three 3-point baskets and held an 8 point commanding lead at halftime. This was the first time this season the JV boys trailed at halftime. With their back up against the wall (lose and go home), the boys ripped off 18 unanswered points to start the 3rd quarter and took control of the game. At halftime, the coaches designed a play to exploit a mismatch on defense. The star of the game was Darius Plummer who capitalized on this mismatch and scored 14 points in the 2nd half. The team is moving onto the CYO championship game to face # 2 Seed All Saints, Bayonne on Saturday, March 10, at 12:45pm at SME Linden.

The St. Joseph Celtics basketball 4^th grade boys qualified for the CYO championship game by defeating OLP 25 – 22 in a semi-final matchup at home on March 3. The Celtics jumped to an 8-point halftime lead before OLP of New Providence roared back to cut the lead to 1, midway through the 4^th quarter. The teams traded baskets until the final seconds when the Celtics held on for the win. St. Joe’s man-to-man defense was key as they helped one another and prevented OLP from driving layups. Joseph Miller led the scoring with 8, Kalman Kraham had 6, Luke Chmiel and Aidan Dwyer each had 4, Ben Peacock had 2, and Kyle Gonyea chipped in 1. Colin O’Mara and John Cronin rebounded well and Trey Houghtaling played tough defense and also had a steal. The Celtics improved to 10 – 1 on the year.

The Celtics 3^rd grade boys continued their playoff run besting St. Agnes of Clark 12-8 this past Saturday and advancing to the CYO League Championship. Playing against a bigger team, the Celtics held strong with points scored by Casey Zigler, Vincine Zakian, Ben Szczepanski, Perry Reyes, and Matthew Morales. Tommy Coutinho spearheaded a tremendous defensive effort with 2 rebounds and 3 of the team's 8 steals. Devin Brown and Nicholas Aaron also got into the action in the paint holding St. Agnes to only 3 points in the first half.

St. Joseph's CYO is a shared parish ministry for the parishioners of St. Joseph's in Maplewood and Our Lady of Sorrows in South Orange. For more information about the CYO program you can visit their web site at www.eteamz.com/stjosephcelticscyobasketball.