Coming into his senior season with the Princeton High boys’ basketball team, point guard J.C. Silva was focused on setting others up.

“At first I was trying to help my teammates, like Kevin (Kane), Zahrion (Blue) and Matt (Hart), get open,” said Silva.

But as PHS took the court to host Morristown last Monday, Silva was asked to take on a different role.

“Coach (Mark Shelley) was telling me that I need to help score a lot more so I felt in this game, I really took advantage of it,” said the 5’11 Silva.

Silva responded with aplomb, scoring a career-high 16 points to help the Little Tigers post an impressive 72-64 win over the Colonials.

With PHS clinging to a 33-29 lead heading into the second half, Silva helped the Little Tigers seize control of the contest in the third quarter, scoring seven points, relentlessly driving to the basket.

“I felt that when I was going to the hoop instead of dishing out like I am used to,” said Silva of the quarter which saw PHS outscore Morristown 14-8 to build a double-digit cushion heading into the fourth. “I felt like going up strong and it helped us this time.”

The Little Tigers produced a strong effort offensively as they cleaned up some things in the wake of a 52-47 loss at Hillsborough on Saturday.

“We really had to work on our offensive execution,” said Silva. “We felt that on Saturday we were just going a lot of one-on-ones so this game we focused on setting good screens, back cuts, and really working the ball around. I felt that we were all setting screens for each other, everyone was moving, and it was easy to swing the ball.”

PHS head coach Shelley liked the offensive balance his team showed right from the start of the game.

“The coaches and I were saying we didn’t know how we had 33 points in the first half because some of our big guns didn’t go off,” said Shelley. “Zahrion [Blue] scored and then he got in foul trouble. The Moores (Tad and Tommy) were active. Tommy had 11 on the night.”

Shelley credited Silva with making the difference in the pivotal stretch during the third quarter.

“J.C. has been getting in the lane but throwing up wild shots; we have talked to him about the jump stop and drawing the contact,” said Shelley of Silva who drained a game-high eight free throws in the win over Morristown.

“He got to the line a lot tonight, he was terrific. He was a really good floor leader. We were able to extend the lead to 12.”

For Shelley, it was a really good sign to see his squad execute well against Morristown.

“They are the most fundamental man-to-man team we see and I schedule them on purpose,” said Shelley, who got a team-high 19 points from junior Matt Hart with sophomore Blue adding 11.

“They make you do everything fundamental to score and that will only get us better. To score 72 against them is good. I felt we had an advantage in the post. We were certainly better on the boards and that was good.”

In addition, PHS was much better at holding a lead. “We didn’t finish at Hillsborough, I thought we learned from that tonight,” said Shelley, whose team plays at Lawrence on January 9 before hosting Steinert on January 12.

“It wasn’t pretty at the end but we won. They were pressing so high that we were able to throw over it for some easy baskets. It was good, you always want some adversity because it shows you what you need to work on.”

Silva, for his part, believes that closing the deal against Morristown was critical for PHS.

“On Saturday, we were up by seven and we blew it at the end,” said Silva. “So it was really important for us to win this one.”