Chiera hopes to carry on winning tradition
BY MIKE McDONALD
Staff Writer

In his first year as head coach for the Colonia High School boys basketball team (1-0), Chris Chiera has made it clear that he wants to continue the success Ken Pace had while the coach of Colonia.

“I played for Colonia and coached under Ken for four years,” Chiera said. “At Colonia we do not only try to make each year a successful one, but rather try to run a successful program. That is my goal, to continue the tradition.”

Colonia had a very good season last year, finishing with an overall record of 23-4 and beating Metuchen to claim the GMC Tournament championships. The Pats also reached the semifinals of the North Jersey II Group III tournament before losing to West Side.

Chiera knows it will be tough to repeat that kind of success, especially after losing two of the conference’s best players in Jeff Totin and Nick Allan (not to mention Zach Rosen, who missed last year with a broken elbow) to graduation, but he has full confidence in his kids.

“We try every year at Colonia to have a winning team. We try to get our team playing its best ball from late January through March,” he said.

This year’s team has six seniors, one junior, and two sophomores who will see most of the playing time. The team is led by junior Brandon Hall, who emerged as one of the GMC’s top young players last year in relief of Rosen.

“Brandon plays point guard, and you want your leader on the floor to be your point guard,” Chiera said. “He proved last year that he can get the job done when we need him to set up plays and run our offense. He is in his third year at the varsity level so we expect him to perform well this season.”

Seniors Joe LaSala and Kevin Edmonds are the two seniors in Chiera’s starting lineup.

“Joe plays forward and is a great football player also,” the coach said. “We like to put him against our opponent’s best big man. Joe is able to contain the other team’s big men because he plays a lot bigger than he is and he is a tough kid.”

What makes this year’s team so unpredictable is the two sophomores that Chiera has inserted into the starting lineup.

“J.J. D’Amico and Nnamdi Usuwa had very good success last year as freshmen,” Chiera said. “They have shown a great dedication and love for the game. They also have a lot to learn. The more that they play, they will begin to understand the game at the varsity level, where the game is much quicker and your mental approach has to be different.”

Jeff Menzel and Bryant Androwich are two big men who are expected to make contributions off the bench, while Mike Salvador and Brendan Wagner should provide backcourt relief.

Chiera feels that while his team has plenty of offensive firepower, they will need to concentrate on playing great defense in order to match last year’s success.

“We are extremely committed to playing good defense. Our goal is to hold our opponents to scores in the 30s,” said Chiera.

So far Colonia has done just that. In the team’s opening game, they held Carteret to just 36 points and easily won the game, 52-36. Edmonds led the way in the win with 18 points and 10 boards, while LaSala added 11 points for the Patriots.

This week Chiera has labeled “Brunswick Week‚” as Colonia faced New Brunswick High School last night at home, and will take on North Brunswick High School tomorrow night (away), and East Brunswick High School on Saturday at home.