Huskies Bite River Dell Into Submission on Court

ORADELL - With eight consecutive losses the River Dell Golden Hawks (5-13) season took yet another hit with a one-point loss to neighboring Dumont, 32-31 on Tuesday evening.

Making matters worse, River Dell's hot junior shooter Troy Bendian (6.7 points per game) has been out since Jan. 17 after breaking his finger during the teams 55-51 loss to rival Mahwah.

“I wish I could have been out there to help my team win.” Bendian said. “They played hard and really battled for each other but came up just short.”

The Huskies (4-13) got off to a quick lead as Tim King banked his first of five field goals and continued to add to the lead for a 15-13 halftime score. River Dell gained the lead by the end of the third quarter on a Troy Hughes trey, 22-20.

Both sides continued to pass the lead back and forth as the Hawks went to their freshman bench to provide depth with Connor Belthoff and Mike Fasano swishing a field goal each.

But in the end, the Huskies bite was mightier than the Hawks high flying shooters for a 32-31 decision.

“We were disappointed in ourselves but understand that tomorrow is a new day and we have to pick each other back up. We are a team and must stick together,” senior Nick Shanman said. “We have a similar record to Dumont so the game could have gone either way, unfortunately, it didn’t go our way tonight.”

The Hawks will seek to turn around their season on Thursday, 7pm when the boys head to Garfield against the Boilermakers.