Stumpy’s Sunday Blog: Notes, Thoughts on the SCT, Extras from Saturday and More

There is a ton of stuff to get to after the past couple of days, so I won’t waste any time,  and we’ll start with the boys basketball side and wrap it up with the girls side, so scroll down if you want to get right to the girls hoops stuff.

BOYS BASKETBALL

Updated 6:55 p.m.

I took in two games on Saturday, starting with Shore’s 48-39 win over Red Bank in a must-win game for each team to get into the state playoffs. It’s clear that the Blue Devils and coach Doug Shaw used the fact that everyone thought they would fall on their face after moving from Class B Central to the bigger-school Class A Central as a rallying cry this season, so making the state playoffs became a badge of honor for them. I thought they wanted it a little more, while Red Bank sunk under a hail of technicals, missed shots and the ejection of coach Scott Martin to finish a frustrating morning, while Shore senior guard Mike Pillari did his best Steve Nash impersonation while setting up shop at the free throw line in the fourth quarter to bring home the win. I’ve heard from other coaches that they think they never get any calls in Shore’s gym and that the physical Blue Devils turn it into a football game out there, but from what I saw, Shore just plays in-your-face defense and teams just have to match that intensity. In an earlier version of this post, I may have implied that Martin said something to me about the officials, which he did not. I just meant that opposing coaches have been frustrated in that gym, so I could see where Martin was coming from when he expressed his displeasure to the officials during the game, not to me in any way after the game.

It’s a typical Shore team in that the Blue Devils defend you to the death and never give anyone a clean look from the perimeter. They are a little more vulnerable on the glass because sophomore big man Mark Coleman is out for the season with an injury, but they all do their best inside. They also have two athletic big men in Rich Vivian and David Roslin who can face the basket and put the ball on the floor. They are so methodical on offense that they limit the overall number of possessions in the game, which, coupled with their defense, can keep them in the game against anyone. Someone is going to have to work hard to knock this team out of the Central Jersey Group II bracket, and I like the gritty Pillari, who doesn’t really take any bad shots and is a hard-nosed defender.

From there I went to the Neptune-Monsignor Donovan game, where the Scarlet Fliers community honored legendary coach Larry Hennessy, who passed away in Virginia in August. As for the game, Mon Don had it down to seven points in the fourth quarter, but Neptune’s ability off the dribble was just too much in the end. Senior forward Dan Singleton was slashing to the rim with success and, as usual, senior guard D.J. Gutridge was breaking down his defender and getting into the lane off the dribble. It got a little chippy near the end, as Mon Don coach Mike Kearney got hit with a technical for arguing and a Mon Don fan got tossed out of the gym, but the main thing I noticed was how Monsignor Donovan sophomore guard Sean Grennan (19 points) was able to score against some good defenders, including Gutridge, arguably the best on-the-ball defender in the Shore. That’s the kind of thing that colleges want to see, and Monmouth University assistant Chris Kenny, a former star at Christian Brothers Academy and Monmouth U, was in the stands watching the game.

While I knew that Hennessy was a legend who won over 600 games, I learned a lot more about him from Saturday’s event, particularly from the outstanding program put together by 1972 Neptune graduate Bill King. That was no shock, given that King was the public relations director for the Milwaukee Bucks for 22 years, so he knows how to put together key information, but he really did a great job on the research for everything. I had no idea that Hennessy was also an outstanding player in his own right whose jersey still hangs from the rafters at Villanova. Neptune coach Ken O’Donnell, who spearheaded the event and was very close with Hennessy, said he didn’t even really know about all that stuff because Hennessy never talked about his playing days. I included Hennessy’s coaching accomplishments in my story on the event, but here are some more fun facts:

• In the 1952-53 season with Villanova, he finished second in the nation in scoring at 29.2 ppg, just behind Frank Selvy’s 29.5 ppg mark.
• His roommate in college at Villanova was none other than a coach synonymous with Saturday’s opponent, former long-time Monsignor Donovan coach Steve Gepp, who has the gym at Mon Don named after him.
• The Philadelphia Warriors won the NBA title in Hennessy’s rookie season in 1955-56, beating the Fort Wayne Pistons in the finals.
• The 58 wins in a row at home for Neptune during nine seasons (1959-60 to 1967-68) are believed to be a state record.
• Hennessy coached one season at Brookdale Community College, and during four seasons at Mater Dei after his first stint at Neptune, his teams went 87-18 and won four division titles.
• This one might be the best one: In 1954, Hennessy was an extra in the film, “Go, Man, Go!” about the Harlem Globetrotters, and it featured legendary actor Sidney Poitier as well as actress Ruby Dee. I’m sure the unintentional comedy is off the charts in that one.
• Neptune has only had four boys basketball head coaches since Hennessy started in the 1957-58 season and has only had eight coaches in since the 1930s. That is insane. They are like the Pittsburgh Steelers of Shore basketball, and Lakewood and Christian Brothers Academy spring to mind as the only ones who can really match that type of longevity out of their coaches.
• The name Scarlet Fliers came from 1929 Neptune graduate James L. Ogle for a team that wore scarlet and flew up and down the court.
• The 1907-08 squad beat Asbury Park 96-0 in one game. I had the over-under at 94 points in that game, so that last bucket killed me.

As for the rest of Saturday’s action, that’s a gutsy win by Monmouth over St. Rose without Neil Thompson, who was suspended for one game for a violation of school policy. Justin Ruiz and Cameron Lee stepped up and had arguably their best games in their careers to bring home the win, and that could go a long way toward this team’s confidence going forward, if those guys can rise to the challenge. They now know that they can beat a quality opponent with a so-so game from Anthony Gibson (10 points) and no Thompson or Joe Willman, which has to help their confidence.

Raritan had a major scare when Vincent Casalaspro had to be helicoptered to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital after hitting his head on the floor against St. John Vianney and suffering a seizure. He stayed overnight after returning to stable condition, so thankfully everything is OK. As for the Lancers, they needed that win to qualify for the state playoffs, so I guess they will either play the rest of a suspended game that they led by 18 points with 35 seconds left in the third quarter, or Raritan will just take a forfeit and move on.

Congrats to Mater Dei and good job by head man Bob Klatt for leading the fight out of a four-game hole and qualifying for the state playoffs with a win over Jackson Memorial. That name that keeps popping up game after game for the Seraphs is senior forward Chris Chamberlin, who has gotten it done scoring and rebounding to help lead the way.

Finally, the Snakebitten Team of the Year Award has already been wrapped up by a one-win Wall squad. So far this season, senior starting guard Tom McDonough was lost for the season with torn ligaments in his thumb after 7 games, freshman sixth man Derek Gardner suffered a season-ending fracture in his thumb after 10 games, senior captain and starting forward Andrew Cecchetti tore his ACL and meniscus on Feb. 2 and is out for the season, and on Thursday, senior captain and starting forward Corey Whitman, who was averaging 14.2 ppg, suffered a severe high ankle sprain and is done for the season as well. Suffice it to say that the first season for new head coach Michael Puorro has been a learning experience in overcoming adversity.

As for the Shore Conference Tournament, which will be seeded on Feb. 15, here are a few quick things. I’m not going to attempt any mock seeds until we see the results from this upcoming week as there are still several big games looming out there that will have implications. I will have a big preview of the tournament next week, but here are some thoughts.

• It’s not so much about seeding as it is about match-ups. Teams will want to avoid the 8-9 seed because that most likely means a date with No. 1 Christian Brothers Academy in the quarterfinals, so if a team like Middletown South is in that area, it would probably want to get dropped to No. 10 rather than get 8 or 9 in order to avoid CBA until the SCT final if it can make it there. There is so much parity that after CBA, I think anybody can beat anybody on a given day.
• The most intriguing team by far is Asbury Park. The Blue Bishops have won 15 in a row, including two last-second wins over Point Beach and a close one against Keyport. They are clamoring for respect, but I think they are going to have to beat Freehold this week to get it. I know the B Central always feels disrespected, but here’s a question – when was the last time a B Central team reached the SCT semifinals? I can’t think of one in the last 10 years or so, unless St. Rose did it with Collin Kamm a few years back, but I don’t think so. One of those teams is going to have to get to that point for people to really take the division seriously, and maybe Asbury Park is that team. With Lamar Young and particularly Jamar Smalls, whom opposing coaches have quietly said should be the Player of the Year in the division for all the different things he does even though Young has better numbers, the Blue Bishops have the firepower. They have shown they can get to the SCT quarterfinals, but they are going to have to win one of those games sooner or later. I have seen them a couple times this season, and this is what they are going to have to prove in the SCT – that they can consistently knock down jumpers from the perimeter. Teams are going to zone them and do everything to seal off the defensive backboards, where the Blue Bishops get the lions’ share of their points.
• I’m interested to see how bad that Marlboro loss hurts Middletown South because it could end up dropping them from maybe 4-5 range to around 7-8, which they want to avoid. Usually good wins are weighted better than bad losses in the SCT seeding meeting, so the Eagles might be able to gloss that one over.
• How much have injuries affected the way certain games and teams will be viewed in the seeding? Monmouth lost to Freehold and Neptune without Joe Willman (who obviously isn’t coming back), Middletown South lost to Rumson without Kyle Cancillieri, and Freehold lost to Middletown South without Christian Garcia. From hearing the coaches discuss these scenarios in the past, I can tell you that there usually is no sympathy there. Injuries are part of the game, so a loss is a loss usually to the delegates.
• How hot is Howell right now? If the Rebels qualify for the SCT after qualifying for the state playoffs, they could give someone trouble because of the way they shoot from downtown. Senior guard Tom Callahan is a 3-point sniper, while several opposing coaches have said that sophomore guard Ryan Keegan is a legit all-around threat and could play for any team in the Shore.
• Did Freehold Township wake up in a recent loss to CBA? The Patriots had been kind of floundering around, but took nemesis CBA to the wire on Friday. Can that give the Patriots the confidence to make a run in the SCT?

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Before I get to some girls SCT talk, here are some quick notes.

• I know Colts Neck struggled shooting the ball in a 3-point win over Trenton Catholic in a good nonconference game on Saturday, but it might be a good thing. The Cougars experienced some adversity on the road against a good team and found a way to win, which should only strengthen their resolve going forward.
• While Rumson’s Kate Miller surpassed the 1,500-point scoring mark for her career last week, she isn’t the only Shore Conference senior to do so. Freehold senior forward Shannon Mayrose currently has 1,566 career points and is now just 15 points shy of breaking the school record of 1,580 points set by Liz Scharpf.
• Matawan coach John Kaye must have been reading my mind as he sent me an e-mail to remind me of how well junior Alyssa Johnson has been doing. I know the one-win Huskies have struggled mightily in the merciless Class A Central this season, but in a recent stretch, she had 18 points and 9 rebounds against Shore, 16 points and 18 rebounds against Mater Dei, 17 points and 13 rebounds against Red Bank Catholic and 21 points and 15 rebounds against Manalapan. So even though Matawan is having a rough season, Johnson deserves some credit for a nice year.
• Great job by Howell to lock up a state playoff berth with a win over Manalapan in a year in which standout guard Jacquie Ward went down for the season with a knee injury in the preseason. Junior center Maggie Gilbertson and underrated sophomore Sarah Olson have led the way for the Rebels.
• Keyport also earned its state playoff berth by knocking off Academy Charter. Sophomore Devinn Bright has been a bright spot (no pun intended) for the Red Raiders this season and has put the team on her back in the scoring department to help push them into the postseason.

Now, as the for the Shore Conference Tournament, which will be seeded Feb. 15, the debate continues over that No. 1 seed. Colts Neck just added another bullet to its arsenal with that nonconference win over Trenton Catholic, a team that Neptune will get a crack at this week. That is seriously going to be splitting hairs, but after watching No. 1 St. John Vianney terrorize Rumson 72-45 the other night, it is hard to argue against the Lancers, who now have two wins over RFH this season. I know it might be blasphemy at this point, but SJV freshman Michaela Mabrey might be one of the best players ever at St. John Vianney when it’s all said and done, and I’m including the Gomezes in that conversation.

If SJV is going to shoot like they did against RFH in the SCT, no one is beating them, period. SJV is back to just smashing on teams like Audrey Gomez is running the show, as they have buried old foes like Rumson and RBC like it’s 1989 or something. This team has a swagger, and it is not going to let up on anyone. That RFH game got a little chippy as well as SJV coach Dawn Karpell and RFH coach George Sourlis got into it at one point when Sourlis felt a foul had wrongly been attributed to star Kate Miller. That prompted Karpell’s husband, Jeff, who is the head baseball coach at Shore Regional and a teacher at Rumson, to get up in the stands and bark at Sourlis. It probably was the best part of the whole game as far as I’m concerned.

After halftime, Sourlis and Karpell shook hands and calmly squashed anything in sportsmanlike fashion, but it’s clear that there is no love lost between these teams. I, for one, absolutely love it. As long as the play on the court is clean and hard-n0sed, I love great rivalries. With all of the AAU stuff going on today, everyone on different teams are friends. When I played back in the 1990s, we hated everyone on the other team. Years later I would see those guys and we would laugh about it over a beer, but at the time, we wanted to beat people’s brains in. It’s nice to see that come back again a little bit.

Anyway, as far as the No. 1 seed is concerned, we’ll see how this week shakes out as Neptune has some big nonconference and nondivisional games to help bolster its argument as well. I still most likely see SJV getting that top seed, but you never know. The Class A Central delegate on the SCT seeding committee is Red Bank Catholic coach Joe Montano, who has seen firsthand on multiple occasions how good SJV is this season.

Middletown South is on fire right now after blowing out Freehold, and I wonder if the Eagles’ recent stretch of wins against Rumson and Freehold will help erase a bad loss to Middletown North and a setback against a Southern team that will most likely win or share the Class A South title. Can that get them as high as No. 5 over St. Rose? It could, considering that St. Rose has no wins over any other teams currently ranked in All Shore Media Top 10, although the Purple Roses don’t have any bad losses, either. That could possibly set up a 4-5 rematch between South and RFH in the SCT quarterfinals, which would be a fun game.

B/G Hoops: A Banner Night For Midd. South/Matawan Football Duo Makes College Commitments

Posted 2:45 a.m.

Before I get to basketball, there were two more football signings from Wednesday to announce. Matawan linebacker/fullback Jamiel Sims is headed to Wagner, and his Huskies teammate, wide receiver Kyle Hardy, will join Colts Neck linebacker Sean Smith and St. Peter’s Prep quarterback Justin Perez (a Freehold Twp. resident) at C.W. Post. Congrats to both of them.

Now, on to Thursday night, where there were plenty of interesting games, headlined by the performances of the Middletown South boys and girls teams.

I’ll star with the girls, who rolled Freehold, 51-33, in a nondivisional game behind 32 points from senior Danielle Pankey, the reigning All Shore Media Player of the Week, who also helped limit the Shore Conference’s leading scorer, Freehold forward Shannon Mayrose, who was in foul trouble all game. That win certainly adds to Middletown South’s Shore Conference Tournament seeding resume and continues some scorching-hot play as they also knocked off Rumson. Pankey is playing her way right into the All-Shore discussion with two big games in high-profile wins, and she has shown that she can be a force offensively and defensively. She always could put it on the floor and get to the basket, but her improved outside shooting has made the difference as she nailed five threes in the win over the Colonials.

Tom Brennan‘s crew is playing its best basketball of the season at the right time as it seems to have taken consecutive losses to Middletown North and Southern to heart and has come roaring back into the SCT seeding picture. I’m sure Southern is quietly loving every minute of it because the Rams have a nice bargaining chip in that SCT seeding meeting with every impressive South victory.

Also on the girls side, a few non-suspenseful division titles were wrapped up as Neptune, which is currently without sophomore guard Syessence Davis as she recuperates from a broken nose, routed Wall to claim the outright Class B North championship and St. Rose rolled past Mater Dei to clinch the Class B Central non-public title. Keyport’s win over Asbury Park means that the Red Raiders need to knock off Academy Charter in their final game before the state cut-off on Saturday to qualify for the NJSIAA playoffs, while Brick now has to beat Central on Friday night to get in after being knocked off by Lacey, which has become a real thorn in some teams’ sides with some good late-season play.

On the boys side, injuries continue to play a significant role as No. 8 Middletown South knocked off No. 3 Freehold, 58-45, in a nondivisional game as the Colonials were without their main inside presence, junior forward Christian Garcia, who was out with a sprained ankle suffered on Monday in a win over Monmouth. Meanwhile, Middletown South welcomed back its main inside presence, 6-5 junior Kyle Cancillieri, from a broken nose, and he dropped in a game-high 18 points to get the win. South certainly knows what it’s like to lose a key game while short-handed as it fell to Rumson on Saturday without Cancillieri. That’s a big win for the Eagles’ SCT seeding hopes, and I also think it helps Neptune in its quest to cement the No. 2 seed because the Scarlet Fliers have a win over the Eagles while Freehold now has a loss to them. I continue to say that the Eagles have the goods to make a run to the SCT final (unless they run into CBA in the semis) as long as everyone stays healthy.

Garcia is expected to return soon, so at least Freehold won’t be without him for long. Colonials coach Ben DiBiase is also a no-excuses guy so I’m sure he is not writing this loss off just because they didn’t have Garcia. They still expected to win.

I took in Monsignor Donovan‘s 43-41 win over Point Boro in front of a packed house down at Mon Don with two good student cheering sections. The Griffins kicked off a stretch in which they play No. 5 Point Boro, No. 2 Neptune and No. 10 Lakewood in succession, and they can now take the overall Class B South title outright with a win over Lakewood at home on Monday and then a victory over Pinelands in their final divisional game.

Mon Don sophomore point guard Sean Grennan continues to impress, as he had a game-high 19 points. You can tell that Grennan really worked hard in the off-season to add to his game. He can catch and shoot from mid-range and behind the arc, he can get to the rim, and he has a nice fadeaway off the dribble from about 15 feet that is becoming automatic. He also will pull the trigger off the dribble from behind the arc and does a nice job of using his body and inside-out dribbles to create space between him and a defender. Other than packing on more size, I think his other main area for improvement looks to be defensively, but his offensive game now has a ton more variety than it did last season and that is a testament to his hard work on his game.

I also like the size and athletic ability of sophomore forward Anthony Duszczak, who is about 6-5 and is a good leaper. He’s still feeling his way offensively, but the more aggressive he becomes, the more dangerous he will be. The inside-outside tandem of Duszczak and Grennan could be a fearsome one in the not-too-distant future. Junior Ryan Milana also had a solid game with some big free throws near the end, and he just has that bulldog, football mentality that every successful team needs.

Point Boro’s Pat Hart had 13 points after dropping 29 on Mon Don the first time around, but I think that was more because of Point Boro’s limited possessions. When you work the ball around the perimeter for 30-35 seconds at a time before a shot, you’re not going to get a ton of chances to score, especially if the other team is also methodical offensively. Hart has one of the better post-up games of any guard in the Shore, as once he gets a shorter defender pinned on his hip, it’s over. I know there was a lot of howling over the no-call when Hart got into the lane in the final seconds and ended up throwing up an off-balance jumper that fell short after making some contact with Milana, but after watching the video a couple times, the contact with Milana was not that significant. If any foul might have been called, it should have been on one of the two defenders who bumped Hart when he split a double team off the dribble before getting into the lane. Still, it’s a judgement call, and it went Mon Don’s way.

Point Boro coach Kevin Hynes wasn’t exactly thrilled about that no-call after the game, but he felt his team gave a good performance, it just came down to a few little things. It’s always interesting to see how different coaches view this public/non-public division title stuff. A lot of the coaches in A North value the public (i.e., non-CBA) title and consider it a good accomplishment, whereas in other divisions, coaches could care less about winning a title if it’s not the overall title. When informed that Point Boro could still win a share of the Class B South public title even if Mon Don all but clinches the overall (and the non-public) title with a win over Lakewood on Monday, Hynes looked like I wrapped a turd in a box and told him to have a Merry Christmas. I guess the Panthers won’t be springing for “Class B South public co-champs” jackets if they end up tied with Lakewood behind Mon Don in the end.

Brick Memorial received an unexpected gift when it was able to clinch the Class A South title outright by virtue of a 72-68 win over Southern and a loss by a reeling Toms River North team to a sub-.500 Jackson Memorial squad. Senior Matt O’Brien dropped 25 for the Mustangs, who are getting hot at the right time with the SCT looming.

CBA also squeaked by Marlboro, 90-47, to clinch the overall Class A North title, believed to be its 8 billionth division title. Right now it’s just the Colts and everyone else in the Shore. Raritan clinched its state playoff berth with a win over Shore Regional, which now has to beat Red Bank Regional on Saturday to earn its berth in the state playoffs.

Congrats to Howell, which earned a rare state playoff berth of its own by routing Allentown. If I’m not mistaken, Howell’s last state playoff berth was the year I started covering Shore hoops way back when in 1999-2000, so great job by head coach Brian Quick and a team led by guards Tom Callahan and one of the most underrated sophomores in the conference, guard Ryan Keegan. Also congrats to a young Manchester team for clinching its spot in the playoffs with a nice win over Central.

Freehold Township beat Manalapan in a game that has an interesting wrinkle in that Patriots senior Matt Devine, one of the Shore’s top scorers, lives in Manalapan, but that part of Manalapan is districted for Freehold Township (only in bizarro world the Freehold Regional District). He had 21 in the victory.

Asbury Park almost got caught looking ahead to Friday night’s showdown on the road with Point Beach in Class B Central as it edged Keyport, 42-39. That would have dented the Blue Bishops’ SCT seeding case pretty hard had they lost, but now they can stay on a roll by beating the Garnet Gulls, who are looking for their most significant win of the season.

After a loss to St. Rose, Mater Dei now has its back against the wall and must win against Jackson Memorial on Saturday to get into the state playoffs. The Seraphs couldn’t have been excited to see that the Jaguars are playing well as they upset Toms River North.

A team that has been the definition of under the radar, Long Branch, routed Keansburg to get into the state playoffs as well, so congrats to the Green Wave.

Finally, I hope you took some time out of your night to watch that Celtics-Lakers OT thriller on TNT. Great game, featuring some cold-blooded jumpers from Kobe Bryant down the stretch. I am an unabashed NBA fan along with Miss All Shore Media (the biggest Lakers fan this side of Jack Nicholson), as we are probably the only people in Monmouth County who have NBA League Pass that gets us all of the games even though I am a Knicks fan and can get their games on MSG. So yes, that means I’m the guy watching Sacramento-Golden State at 1 in the morning while I’m writing for this site. If you can’t get fired up watching LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett or Kevin Durant (who I love) and others on a regular basis, you don’t like basketball.

However, I feel like being an NBA fan is seen as some kind of mental illness at this point by the so-called purists. I remember telling a hoops junkie like Holmdel coach Sean Devaney that I loved the NBA way more than college hoops (which is only good for gambling during March Madness but fairly boring until then) and he looked at me like I said that I enjoyed punching puppies in the face. The egos and the individualism gets to a lot of people, but I love every minute of it, even Oklahoma City vs. Minnesota. The Knicks are even watchable at this point for crying out loud, and I’ll take David Lee and Wilson Chandler (and hopefully LeBron) on my team any day. One day I will write a full treatise to the NBA on this blog just to annoy everyone singing the praises of the college game and its no-name players (although I wish the best for all Shore grads playing in college), just to drive everyone nuts.

Spinella commits to South Carolina/Martell Blossoming at URI/Friday hoops extras

Former Colts Neck star forward Steve Spinella committed to South Carolina on Friday after making his official visit earlier in the week down in Columbia, S.C. Spinella is averaging over 30 points per game as a post-grad player at Apex Academy in Pennsauken. He led the Shore in scoring last season and helped the Cougars reach the Shore Conference Tournament semifinals. He picked South Carolina over Seton Hall and UNC-Greensboro among others. Having visited Columbia, S.C., on numerous occasions I can see how the official visit closed the deal. Let’s just say there’s no shortage of social life down there in addition to basketball, plus it’s a beautiful area. Congrats to Spinella, who really blossomed in the last two years.

Also, here is another update on a former Shore player who is doing well that was passed along by one of our readers. Former Rumson center Will Martell has overcome the naysayers and become not only a Division I player at the University of Rhode Island, but one who is making an impact as a 7-foot center. Like Spinella, Martell also did a post-grad year, with his coming at the Hun School out in the Princeton area. Martell was set to go to a Division III school out of Rumson before reconsidering and doing the post-grad year, and it significantly upgraded his situation.

As for those who are currently playing, it was a wild Friday night on the boys side in which some division races became a little clearer (Class B Central) while others got murkier (Class A Central and Class B South). The madness continued in Class A Central, where front-runners Holmdel and Shore both hit the deck against Rumson-Fair Haven and St. John Vianney, respectively. Easily the most confounding team is Rumson, which lost to last-place Matawan earlier in the week and then came back to sting a Holmdel team that was tied for first place in the loss column with Manasquan, leaving the Warriors alone in first again. St. John Vianney, which is also at the bottom of the division, knocked off a Shore team that was playing better than anyone in the division. I think the reason for all of this parity is that all of these teams are flawed, so the margin for error is slim. No A Central team really has the offensive firepower to just blow teams out, so it comes down to defense and execution. One thing that is for sure is that it may be hard for any of these teams to get a decent seed in the Shore Conference Tournament because they keep knocking each other off.

The other two upsets of the night belonged to Howell and Central. We’ll start with the Rebels, who took out No. 7 Freehold Township to give the Patriots their second loss in two days. Senior guard Tom Callahan (who once sold half a million brake pads to save the city of Sandusky, Ohio) went off from behind the 3-point arc for Howell, and the Patriots are really searching for answers right now as their offensive chemistry is lacking and their defense is struggling. Howell, meanwhile, quietly has wins over Freehold Township and Brick Memorial, which has to be frustrating in a sense because if they can beat those teams, they feel they probably shouldn’t be 7-8. However, they are still right there in contention for a postseason berth, so if they keep the momentum going, they could be a spoiler in a couple of weeks.

Central had a big night as the always-explosive Ibn Moye poured in 27 points, including his 1,oooth career point, in an upset of first-place Point Boro in Class B South, which now puts Lakewood alone in first place in the division. As long as Moye is in the mix, Central always has a chance to pull off an upset. It was a tough week for the two teams that entered as Ocean County’s best teams, Toms River North and Point Boro. The Mariners fell to three-win Toms River South, and the Panthers went down to a Central team that has hovered around .500 for most of the season. Brick Memorial seems to be gaining steam, and we’ll see if that continues against Holmdel on Saturday.

Monmouth had to pull one out against Red Bank, 53-50, one day after suffering a devastating blow with the loss of senior center Joe Willman to a season-ending injury. Unless Monmouth is still in shock and Red Bank took advantage of it, that’s a troubling sign for the Falcons because they blew Red Bank’s doors off twice this season before that game, so if the gap has been closed that dramatically without Willman, it’s going to be an uphill battle the rest of the way. I would guess that RBR ran its match-up zone on defense because it didn’t have to worry about Willman destroying it on the offensive boards like he did in the first two meetings, and the Bucs took Monmouth to the wire. I’m sure Neptune and Freehold’s coaches were there taking notes about the Willman-less Falcons.

I took in the St. Rose-Point Beach game and the Purple Roses romped to a 19-point win. I think junior Chris Hueth makes a big difference for St. Rose because he is a physical presence who likes to mix it up in the paint, which St. Rose seemingly hasn’t had in a while. He gives them a little more of an edge than usual. They just ran right through Point Beach’s defense for lay-ups or open threes for most of the night, although the Gulls did have success when they pressured St. Rose full court out of desperation toward the end. The Roses are going to have to tighten up that aspect of their game if they expect to go into Asbury Park’s tiny court and win on Jan. 31 against the Blue Bishops’ relentless pressure.

Senior center Sean McPaul showed a little more shooting range than I have seen from him in the past, as he was hitting turnarounds from 12-13 feet and looked good offensively. He is a huge key to St. Rose’s SCT hopes because most teams don’t have anyone who can match his size. If he can start to take over offensively at times, the Roses could be tough.

As for Point Beach, it just wasn’t the Gulls night. The two times I’ve seen them, their defense has been a little shaky. If their shots aren’t consistently falling, they are in trouble. Sophomore Jarelle Reischel didn’t have the best night, and he still had 17 points, which will tell you something about his talent. He has already been offered by Rutgers, according to Point Beach coach Nick Catania, and Kansas, Temple and a host of others are all heavily interested. Senior guard Jose Diaz has received interest from Bloomfield, a Division II school, as well as a handful of other Division II and III schools and possibly Division I NJIT as a walk-on, according to Catania.

On the girls side, the news of the night was Middletown North‘s upset of rival Middletown South. Middletown North is almost like the Howell of the girls side, as the Lions have struggled but boast wins over Ocean and now the No. 6 Eagles. Also, just like Howell’s boys, never underestimate a team that is in must-win territory when it comes to their SCT and state playoff hopes. While also showing that you can throw records out the window when two cross-town rivals meet, the Lions’ win also shows that after the top five teams now, anyone can beat anyone. Middletown South seemed immune to the upset bug, only losing to top teams like Colts Neck and Neptune, but now the Eagles have been bitten too like everyone else short of St. Rose. They also have to recover quickly as they have a tough nondivisional game against Southern on Saturday in a game that will have SCT seeding implications. As for Middletown North, Kim Ridolfi has led the Lions back from a rough start and is an underrated player to watch.

Like the boys, Howell’s girls also picked off Freehold Township, which was a nice win for the Rebels. Finally, Raritan senior Alexa Ryan dumped 10 threes and 44 points on Matawan, beating the previous school record of seven 3-pointers.