Piscataway NJ- On Saturday, February 14th, 2026, the Piscataway Chiefs Men’s Basketball team celebrated their Head Coach’s birthday with an 80-66 comeback victory against Sayreville in the GMC Quarter Finals. Piscataway came back from a 10 point deficit in the second quarter to advance to the Semi Finals. They were led by Junior guard, Landon Pernell and Senior Forward, Donald Nwaigwe, who both had 23 points.
How it happened
Sayreville opened the game firing on all cylinders, pulling away to a 22-12 lead in the first quarter and ending the quarter with a 27-18 lead. In the second quarter, Piscataway was able to rally back with clutch 3-pointers from Landon Pernell to make it 29-25 Sayreville. However, Sayreville responded with a 6-0 run to extend their lead to 35-25. Here is what Piscataway Head Coach, Bob Turco, had to say about falling behind so early:
“Today we came out slow. I think that they just slowly got to feel for each other, have confidence in each other, and they just became a team again” Turco said. “We’ve had a bunch of tough games throughout the year just like this in the fourth quarter. They knew that even if we’re down, we’re never out.”
Piscataway was able to stop the bleeding and bring it back to 37-41, ending the half with a breakaway slam dunk from Donald Nwaigwe.
Landon Pernell had 15 points in the first half. He spoke on what it was like to lead the team through this come back:
“After that talk at halftime, we knew what we had to do. We were only down by like four,” Pernell said. “He always tells us perseverance. We’re not giving up.”
The Chiefs were able to close it to a 1 point game with a 3 point shot from Senior Forward, Isaiah Fowler and eventually took their first lead of the afternoon ever since the start of the game after an And-one play by Nwaigwe making the score 43-42 Piscataway with about 6 minutes to go in the third quarter. The rest of the quarter was back and forth and ended with Sayreville holding on to a two point lead at 56-54.
The Chiefs really began to take control of the game during the fourth quarter. Another Nwaigwe slam dunk followed by a three point shot and free throws from Senior Guard, Josh Lima, the Chiefs were leading 68-64. This is when Piscataway really started ramping things up. Coach Turco said their defense is how they were able to increase their lead.
“The philosophy always is to be full court press the whole game. A team like Sayreville has very good shooters but they’re not as deep, so their legs get tired. The more and more we push tempo, we make them work,” Turco said. “The fourth quarter usually is ours … But the rest of the team [Sayreville] didn’t really crash the boards like they did in the first half. So, I think that our style of play is what really helped us pull away.”
Landon Pernell also spoke about how their speed of play helped shift the momentum.
“The steals and speeding them up. Coach always tells us to heat teams up, make sure that they’re not comfortable. We made them uncomfortable. That’s when we started getting the job done.”
Pernell was able to secure the win with a 5 point play after an And one and a technical foul on a Sayreville coach, increasing the lead to 73-64, flipping the 10 point deficit from the first quarter on Sayreville’s heads.
Player Performances
Pernell finished with 23 points in the afternoon and has been averaging 19.6 points per game in his last 5 games. Here is what he had to say about his performance:
“When we’re not scoring enough, I take it into my hands. I’m the Junior on the team. I’m the youngest one in the starting five and when my team’s not hitting, it’s my job to hit. At least one person has got to be doing their job on offense.”
This wasn’t Piscataway’s first time playing Sayreville this season. On January 8th, 2026, Sayreville upset Piscataway in the Anthony Gym 68-67. Coach Turco spoke on the difference between then and now.
“During the course of the season, we’ve become better basketball players, meaning basketball IQ. We watched the film and there was some serious mistakes the first time we played them. That didn’t happen today. It’s because of us playing some really good teams and having to play really hard in the fourth quarter to pull out wins and we lost a few games because we didn’t play well in the fourth quarter.”
What’s next?
Piscataway (19-6) returns to play in Monroe on this upcoming Wednesday, February 18th, at 5 pm against Colonia (16-8) in the Greater Middlesex Conference Semi Finals.
