The Sport Report
Father and Son
Now First and Second in Basketball Wins
Father and son, Charles and Marc Brown, respectively, are now No. 1 and No. 2 all-time on the NJCU men’s basketball wins list, making them one of the winningest father-son combinations in the history of college basketball at any level and one of only a few to hold the first two spots at the same school.
On March 2 on ‘Coach Charlie Brown Court’ in the first home playoff game since the elder Brown’s final game at the helm in March 2007, the 2016 Gothic Knights punched their ticket to the Eastern College Athletic Conference ECAC Semifinals with a win over Centenary.The win was the 134th in the career of the nine-year head coach who now trails only his father, who had 483 wins in 25 years, 1982-2007.
Saved By Lubonski
Cassie Lubonski (Edison, NJ/Edison) of the women’s soccer team and Andrew Niech (Avenel, NJ/Colonia) of the baseball team (Story, page 53) were both natives of Middlesex County who left their marks on their respective sports at New Jersey City University as senior captains in 2015-16. Lubonski, the starting goalkeeper for the Gothic Knights, won her second straight Presidential Academic Achievement Award this year an annual honor bestowed upon the male and female student-athletes with the highest overall grade point average. With a near-perfect 3.991 GPA while pursuing a triple major in Elementary Education, Special Education and His-tory, she earned the highest GPA of any female to ever win the award and the second highest overall GPA since the award was instituted in 1999.
Lubonski claimed First Team Academic All-New Jersey Athletic Conference distinction for the second year in a row and was this year’s selection as NJCU’s New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NJAIAW) Woman of the Year.
A 2014 Capital One Academic All-District® 2 Division III Women’s Soccer First Team selection, Lubonski is a six-time Dean’s List recipient in six semesters at NJCU and has earned a perfect 4.00 GPA in five consecutive semesters. She has also been actively involved in NJCU’s community service outreach, helping to organize two Read Across America events.On the field, Lubonski became NJCU’s starting goalkeeper this year after two seasons as the backup keeper and a starting defender. She owned a .744 save percentage with four shutouts and 149 saves in 17 games this season. She led the NJAC in saves and saves per game (8.65) and ranked 29th and 38th nationally, respectively, in those two categories. Lubonski recorded eight efforts of double figure saves with a high of 15.
Voted Academic All-District
Student-athletes achieve on and off the court
Chinwe Wosu, Sheldon Coure
New Jersey City University athletics achieved a scholar-athlete milestone this year when senior power forward Chinwe Wosu (Jersey City, NJ/University Academy Charter) of the men’s basketball team and men’s volleyball senior outside hitter Sheldon Coure (Redondo Beach, CA/Redondo Union) were each voted to the 2016 CoSIDA Academic All-District® 2 Division III teams.
The selections mark the first time in University history two male student-athletes have each been named First Team Academic All-District in the same year. Wosu was selected in February while Coure received a similar nod in May for the Division III At-Large, which features the top scholar athletes in 12 sports.
Wosu became the first men’s basketball player in NJCU history ever voted Academic All-District while Coure is the second men’s volleyball student-athlete to receive the nod. Together, they are the 21st and 22nd NJCU student-athletes. Chosen Academic All-District selection in NJCU history all since 1999-2000.
Wosu, the 2016 New Jersey Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year and co-captain of the ECAC Division III championship men’s basketball team, is a Business Administration major with a concentration in International Business, Travel and Tourism, and had one of the great comeback stories in all of Division III basketball this season.
After getting cut as a freshman, averaging just 1.8 points and 2.1 rebounds as a sophomore who played only 177 minutes all season and choosing to skip basketball as a junior to concentrate on his studies, he returned to basketball this year and the player often described as the hardest worker on the court evolved into the NJAC Defensive Player of the Year and a Second-Team All-NJAC honoree in his first full season of college basketball.
Wosu, who attends NJCU’s on a full Presidential academic scholarship, was a nominee for the Jostens Trophy. He is a three-time Dean’s List recipient. His weekly honors during the season included NJAC Player of the Week, Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association (MBWA) Division II/III Player of the Week, Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Metro Player of the Week, D3hoops.com National Team of the Week and a United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) National Player of the Week finalist.
Wosu was the 2016 winner of the Thomas M. Gerrity Scholar-Athlete of the Year award the most prestigious award bestowed annually to an NJCU student-athlete.
Meanwhile, Coure wrapped up a three-year run in Jersey City as one of the top all-around players in program history, claiming three All-Skyline Conference selections in his three years as a Gothic Knight. He was a two-time First Team All-Skyline Conference middle hitter in 2014 and 2015 and Second-Team All-Skyline as an outside hitter in 2016.
The International Business major was the 2014 Skyline Men’s Volleyball Scholar-Athlete of the Year and with a 3.733 grade point average, will be named a three-time Skyline Academic Honor Roll selection later this year. Last year, Coure was honored as 2015 NJCU Thomas M. Gerrity Scholar-Athlete of the Year He earned the 2016 Presidential Academic Achievement Award for the top GPA of any men’s student-athlete at the institution.
A two-time Skyline Honor Roll selection this season and seven-time honoree in his career, Coure won numerous on the court awards during his three seasons as a Gothic Knight. On March 4, 2014 he was named the Sports Imports/AVCA Men’s Division III National Player of the Week. That same season he was a three-time Skyline Rookie of the Week choice and a three-time Honor Roll selection. As a junior in 2015, Coure was named to the Skyline All-Sportsmanship Team and was a two-time weekly Honor Roll recipient.
To be eligible to be on the All-District ballot, student athletes must be a starter and significant contributor of at least sophomore academic status, with a minimum GPA of 3.30. Athletes eligible for All-District 2 honors include those from Division III institutions in Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island and West Virginia. All nominations and voting are conducted by membership of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Alumni Donate 1,000-Point Board
After 82 years of men’s basketball and 45 years of women’s basketball, New Jersey City University fans have witnessed many players reach the 1,000-point plateau. Now, thanks to the generosity of the men’s basketball alumni, those players who have reached the coveted milestone will have permanent recognition.
In a project steered by two-time NJCU Athletics Hall of Famer and legendary retired men’s basketball coach Charlie Brown, NJCU recently unveiled its first 1,000-point board for basketball. The display is located across from the Athletics Hall of Fame in the main hallway of the John J. Moore Athletics and Fitness Center, adjacent to the lobby.
The board, which features 40 ranked spots for past, present and future men’s basketball players and 20 for the women, was designed with a green and gold scheme to match the school colors and as more players are added for both sports, there are embedded, adjustable slots to rearrange the rankings.
Currently, the men’s program boasts 28 members of the 1,000-point club in its storied history; the women’s program has had eight reach the milestone.
The 1000-point board was donated by Coach Charlie Brown and men’s basketball alumni dating from 1962-2007. Included in that group are seven alumni who made sizeable donations towards the completion of the project.
“I’m really thankful and proud we were able to do this,” said Brown. “I was visiting some other schools while following the basketball team over the last few years and I noticed a lot of colleges had 1,000-point boards. I thought it looked nice and I felt that we had so many of them [1000-point scorers] that we deserved to have the guys have recognition. So we started the [fundraising] process. I went to some of my [former] players and they thought it was a great idea. So they contributed to it and we fundraised and we are able to do this”
NJCU Men’s Basketball Captures Record Seventh ECAC Championship
The New Jersey City University’s men’s basketball team culminated a memorable 2015-16 campaign in March when it captured its seventh Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III championship the most by any program all-time.
In the March 6 Metro/Upstate championship game, NJCU charged past Ithaca College, 87-65. A day earlier in the ECAC semifinal round, the program made a statement with its most lopsided postseason victory ever, routing Baruch College by 39 points, 94-55.
In the championship game, junior shooting guard Jalen Harris (Brandywine, Md./Gwynn Park, MD) scored 24 points, and freshman small forward James Frazier (Elizabeth, NJ/Elizabeth) added 21. Harris scored 45 points in NJCU’s three-game run to the championship and was named the Tournament Most Outstanding Player. Senior small forward Khalid Muhammad (Orange, NJ/Orange) added 11 points to finish his career with 1,257 points.
The championship capped an incredible season for ninth-year head coach Marc Brown, who was chosen by his peers as the New Jersey Athletic Conference Coach of the Year for the second time in four years and the ECAC Division III Metro Coach of the Year.
Brown, who became the second winningest coach in school history during the season, led NJCU to its first ECAC title since 2006. Overall, NJCU posted a 21-8 ledger and narrowly missing out on the NCAA Division III Tournament. NJCU guided a very young squad to its first NJAC regular season championship since 2006-07 with a 15-3 ledger in the league after being picked fourth in the preseason coaches’ poll. NJCU was ranked No. 1 in the NCAA Atlantic Region in back-to-back weeks. It won 20 games for the first time since the 2005-06 season and for the 15th time in program history.
“The title run means a lot,” said Brown. “To finish the season on a high note and send our seniors out the right way. Our goal after the NJAC Tournament was to get to 21 wins and we did it in pretty impressive fashion. We came with a lot of energy yesterday and today. To add to our legacy was important to me. The future is bright. We had a really good recruiting class this year and I’m looking forward to the future and coaching some of these younger guys.”
“It’s… Outta Here!
Niech was such an offensive trailblazer in his four years on the diamond, the Middlesex County Board of Freeholders chose to honor its native son with a proclamation on June 16.
Niech, who primarily played catcher in his four years at NJCU, but also saw time at first base and designated hitter, rewrote the program’s 69-year-old record books, concluding his career as the Gothic Knight all-time leader in hits (205), doubles (50), extra-base hits (63), total bases (292), games played (150) and games started (149). He became one of the few players in Division III history with 200 hits, 100 RBIs, 100 runs and 50 doubles in 150 or fewer games.
A fine student, Niech graduated in just four years with a degree in Fire Science and a GPA better than 3.1.
A multiple-award winner, Niech was a three-time New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association All-State selection (First Team in 2014), a 2015 NCAA Division III Mid-Atlantic ABCA/Rawlings All-Region Second Teamer, and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Division III Honorable Mention National Hitter of the Week on March 31, 2016. He was a two-time selection to the D3baseball.com National Team of the Week and a two-time New Jersey Athletic Conference Player of the Week.
“I could not be happier for Andrew,” said head coach Jerry Smith, on his senior’s achievements. “Truly a special accomplishment and our institution should be proud of the type of person that will now be recognized as the first to reach 200 and our current hit leader. Though the journey to 200 is mostly filled with success, what makes it possible is overcoming the inevitable adversity that comes with baseball. The elite, like Andrew, have an unmatched ability to remain even keeled and mentally tough through it all. It’s having the confidence in your own ability and that the next pitch is just another opportunity despite the success or struggles of the past.”