SPORTS

Burns, Chao power Parsippany Hills boys basketball over Kittatinny

Lauren Knego
@laurenknego

MORRIS PLAINS – Last year the Parsippany Hills boys basketball team finished the season with one victory. On Monday, the Vikings surpassed that total with a 51-43 win over Kittatinny.

Senior guard Nazier Burns and sophomore point guard Evan Chao led the offense with a combined 34 points as the Vikings improved to 2-8 on the season.

"It's tough with a team that's been down for awhile because we talked the other day about self-fulfilling prophecy, where you start getting down and you're used to not being in games and you start thinking that you're not in control of changing the outcome. I think we did a good job of continuing to play and making the big plays down the stretch," Parsippany Hills first-year coach Mike Herzenberg said. "I think we have players that are capable, they just need to believe in themselves, that's what we're working on."

The Vikings led 11-9 after the first quarter and started to pull away in the second. Kittatinny (2-9) tied the 11-11 game on a basket by junior forward Chris Russell with 6 minutes 15 seconds left. From there Parsippany Hills went on a 6-0 run to take a 17-11 lead with 4:38 to go. Four-straight points from senior guards Kevin Zoellner and Christian Geigenheimer pulled the Cougars back within 17-15 with 3:57 to play.

A 3-pointer from Burns gave the Vikings some breathing room at 20-15 and Parsippany Hills then closed out the half on another 6-0 run to lead 27-15 with 3.5 seconds to go. A 3 at the buzzer from junior guard Jeremy Cerbo pulled Kittatinny to within 27-18 at the half.

"They played hard, but we just came out harder than they did and we showed a lot of heart," Burns said. "We played as a team, we made plays when they needed to be made, it was just an all-around good effort."

Kittatinny outscored Parsippany Hills 10-8 in the third quarter but still trailed 35-28 after 24 minutes of play. In the fourth, the Cougars made a comeback. With the Vikings up 37-30 with 5:56 left in the game, Kittatinny went on a 6-0 run to get within 37-36 with 4:55 to go. Chao hit a free throw and Nazier followed it with a field goal to stretch the Vikings' lead back to 40-36 with 4:13 left.

A 3-pointer from Zoellner and a bucket by senior center Jordan Lorenzo gave Kittatinny its first lead of the game since the first quarter, 41-40, with 3:22 to play. The Vikings picked their offense up and went on yet another 6-0 run to get back up 46-41 and from there the Cougars went into fouling mode and Parsippany Hills hit 5-of-7 free throws down the stretch to hold on for the 51-43 final.

"We did a good job when it came down to the final minutes executing a couple plays, Naz had a big steal, Evan hit a few free throws and AJ (Nagendran), who was in foul trouble, came in and made a couple nice plays off the pick and roll, which gave us an opportunity to secure the win, so that was big for us," Herzenberg said. "I think we moved the ball better, we showed that we can play some pressure defense, we don't have to wait until we're down to pressure teams, and that we can, no matter what happens in a game, play hard until the end."

Chao finished with a game-high 19 points and Burns scored 15. For the Cougars, Gegenheimer led with 14 points and Russell chipped in nine.

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: 973-428-6674; lknego@gannett.com