“MKA played a lot of zone which worked in favor of Jared, and it was nice to see him have a career game today, which definitely helped us.”

The SEC-Freedom is shaping up as a highly-competitive division with Verona off to a strong start and Glen Ridge and West Caldwell Tech both dangerous teams to watch, while Shabazz, West Orange and Barringer round out the 8-team loop.

“The Freedom Division has a lot of good teams and we’re happy to be part of the title chase,” said Petrillo. “Today was a good rivalry game and give MKA credit because they just kept coming at us.

“Hopefully, we can cut down on those turnovers as we move forward with a lot more basketball to be played this season.”

NOTES- The Simon brothers, who reside in Newark, had their grandma Ginny at the game as she made the trip up from Delaware to see them play on Monday…One of MKA’s starting forwards is the very athletic senior Kalvin Thomas who is coming off a record-setting fall season as one of the state’s top running backs as he earned third-team non-public all-state honors from nj.com…MKA’s Jonah Weinberg, a veteran reserve on the squad, hauled down 6 rebounds with a solid effort off the glass on Monday…Another senior reserve, Griffin LaLonde, is the top golfer on MKA’s links squad in the spring…One of Tony Jones’ assistant coaches in addition to football coach Anthony Rea, is former Cougars hoops standout Brendan Powell, a 2017 MKA grad…Newark Academy, which had lost four straight to MKA dating back to 2021, has now won the last two meetings with their Essex County rivals.

SEC-Freedom Division game, Jan. 13, at NA:
MKA (1-7, 0-5) 11 14 7 18 - 50
NEWARK ACADEMY (4-5, 3-1) 12 18 7 15 -52
MKA: Van Girton Marshall 1-3-1-12, Kalvin Thomas 1-0-0-2, Joe Morante 2-4-0-16, Braedon Dawes 1-0-0-2, Carter Convey 1-0-3-5, Jonah Weinberg 0-0-0-0, Khalil Shah-Brown 1-2-5-13, Griffin LaLonde 0-0-0-0 Totals: 7-9-9-50
Newark Academy: Jaden Simon 3-3-5-20, Avery Sampson 0-1-0-3, Zach Shirodkar 2-1-1-8, Tunde Fagbemi 1-0-0-2, Gabe O’Brien 2-0-0-4, Saul Brauns 0-0-2-2, Jaden Simon 4-1-2-13, Jaeden Henry 0-0-0-0. Totals: 12-6-10-52