Coach Mergin Sina and the Gill St. Bernard's boys basketball team

 
Gill St. Bernard's plays underdog role today vs. St. Patrick
Published: Sunday, March 06, 2011, 5:00 AM 




 
Coach Mergin Sina and the Gill  St. Bernard's boys basketball team face St. 
Patrick today at Rahway High School  at 4 p.m. in the NJSIAA Non-Public 
North B semifinals.
Mergin Sina hopes everyone’s plans go terribly wrong.  
If the most difficult bracket of the state’s high school boys basketball  
tournament plays out how sports experts think it will, nationally ranked  No. 
1 St. Patrick and No. 2 St. Anthony would  meet in a defacto national 
championship game this Wednesday in  the NJSIAA Non-Public North B final. 
Media outlets — both locally and nationally — are already discussing the  
potentially historic showdown between the state’s only two unbeaten teams. 
But Sina, the basketball coach at Gill St. Bernard’s, and his squad are  
looking to crash the party. The Knights take on St. Patrick today at Rahway 
High  School at 4 p.m. in a semifinal matchup for that chance. 
“We’re well aware of all that’s going around about this big game that hasn’
t  been played yet between St. Anthony and St. Pat’s,” Sina said. “That’s 
a lot of  pressure on those teams. We’re kind of the new kid on the block. 
“Obviously, if you were going to take odds, those would be the two teams  
you’d take to be there at the end. But we’re one of those teams that we don’
t  back down from anybody.” 
Either St. Anthony or St. Patrick has played in 17 of the 22 Tournament of  
Champions finals, winning a combined 15 crowns. St. Anthony holds the 
historic  edge, with 10 titles. St. Patrick, however, won in 2006, 2007 and 2009. 
So the Knights understand why they’re being overlooked in the grand scheme —
  but not this year. Gill St. Bernard’s (26-2), located in Gladstone, 
Somerset  County, has won 24 games in a row and hasn’t lost in 73 days.  
And now the talents of the No. 3-ranked team in The Star-Ledger Top 20 are  
being doubted. 
“They’re 1 and 2 in the nation for a reason, but they still have to go  
through us,” said Jaren Sina, Mergin’s son and a sophomore on the team who 
has  already committed to Alabama. “We’re not going to just give up. We just 
need to  fight and show people we can be up there, too.” 
Gill St. Bernard’s success this season is a product of team chemistry and  
several reliable scorers. The key against St. Patrick will be containing  
Kentucky-bound power forward, Michael Gilchrist. 
“They’re just a matchup nightmare,” Jaren Sina said. “There’s really no 
room  for error. We have to play a perfect game.” 
Junior guard Alex Mitola said the team has spent the whole season itching 
for  this opportunity. 
“In the beginning of the year when we had a team talk, one of our goals was 
 to get to the state semifinal against St. Anthony or St. Pat’s,” Mitola 
said.  “We got to that goal, and now we just want to keep going. We want a 
state  title.” 
St. Patrick and potentially St. Anthony provide significant roadblocks, but 
 Gill St. Bernard’s is full of believers. For the past day, one of the state
’s  best teams has embraced its role as the underdog and is looking to hush 
its  critics and make basketball fans sorry they ever overlooked the 
Knights. 
“People out there don’t think we actually have a shot, and we know that we 
 do, and we’re going to give it our all,” Mitola said. “We know the talent 
we  have. We know how good we are. We know it could be a St Anthony-Gill 
St.  Bernard’s final.”