(Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Tommy Soulias emerged as one of the top offensive threats in local college basketball circles this winter during his junior campaign for Kean University.

The 6’3, 195-pound guard led the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) in scoring with 21.4 points per game, earning All-NJAC, All-ECAC, All-Region, and Division III All-Metropolitan honors.

Over the last two months, Soulias built on his college success in his third campaign with Ivy Inn in the Princeton Recreation Department Men’s Summer Basketball League, earning league regular season MVP honors as he scored 18.8 points a game.

“It gave me a lot of confidence coming into this league; it is an extremely competitive league with a lot of talented players,” said Soulias.

“I know what I am capable of and what I bring. I realized that the role I needed to play this year was to score and just defend hard every night to help us win.”

Soulias filled that role admirably as Ivy Inn produced a 7-2 record to tie for first place in the regular season and then topped Princeton Pi 67-54 in the playoff quarterfinals and posted a 48-44 win over Aria Health in the semis on the way to the league’s best-of three championship series against second-seeded Bring Me Food.

But in Game 1 of the title series on July 27, Soulias didn’t look like an all-conference player or MVP, scoring just five points as top-seeded Ivy Inn fell 54-39 to Bring Me Food.

“It was just a rough shooting night on Monday and we lost bad,” said Soulias.

“I know that I, as well as the rest of the guys, have to play well for us to win. They are a good team.”

Soulias was determined to make amends as the teams met in Game 2 last Wednesday at Community Park.

“Coming out tonight, I just knew that I couldn’t go back to school this year having that bad taste from Monday night in my mouth,” said Soulias.

Finding the range early, Soulias hit a pair of three-pointers in the first half as Ivy Inn built a 29-15 lead by intermission. “That got me in a rhythm and got me going,” said Soulias, reflecting on his first half performance.

Ivy Inn kept going at its own speed, grinding down Bring Me Food in pulling away to a 45-27 win.

“We were able to dictate the tempo of the game,” said Soulias. “We slowed it down. They are younger so they want to run and play fast. We just wanted to make a couple of extra passes, just get five to 10 passes on every possession and then wear them down defensively to try to make our move.”

The squad blended offensive balance with defensive intensity in overcoming Bring Me Food.

“Sherm (Brittingham) makes a lot of big shots, he is an individual talent as well as Mark Aziz,” said Soulias, who totaled 12 points on the evening with Brittingham tallying a game-high 15 and Aziz chipping in 12.

“Once we got the lead, we knew we needed to hang our hats on the defensive end and not let them get back into the game because they have some very good offensive players. We have some length between Sherm, Mark, and myself to try to change some shots and just rebound to the best of our ability.”

Ivy Inn ended up winning the title by forfeit when Bring Me Food didn’t have enough players to field a team on Friday for the decisive Game 3.

For Soulias, developing into one of the top players in the summer league left him with a winning feeling.

“It meant a lot to be MVP because I have played in this league three summers,” said Soulias.

“In the first summer, I was coming into my freshman year in college and I didn’t know what to expect. I played an extremely small role on a good team, off the bench as the seventh or eighth man. Three years ago, I was 165, 170 pounds, now I weigh about 200 pounds. I am the same height so over three summers I put on 30 pounds of muscle. I got to come back this year and it showed me what hard work can do. It is a strong, tough league.”