The Shore Daily, 3/23/15
Follow Scott Stump on Twitter for news and notes from around the Shore.
Tonight marks the culmination of the boys and girls basketball season in New Jersey with the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions finals at 6:30 and 8 p.m. at Sun National Bank Center in Trenton.
The girls final is an all-Shore affair as the rubber match takes place between St. Rose and Manasquan after they split their first two meetings. You can check out a full preview here with lineups and analysis.
The biggest things that can swing the game for me are whether St. Rose can get Marina Mabrey in foul trouble, the 3-point shooting of Manasquan's guards besides Mabrey, the team that wins the rebounding edge, and which Kat Phipps will emerge - the one who put 34 on Manasquan in the first game, or the one Dara Mabrey held to 10 in the Shore Conference Tournament final? All in all, it should be a great game.
Either Manasquan wins its second TOC title in four seasons, or St. Rose makes history and wins its first. Regardless of who wins, a Shore Conference squad will be winning the girls TOC for the 11th time since the inception of the TOC in 1989. St. John Vianney has the most with six. Manasquan would be the first public school program from the Shore to win more than one if the Warriors get the victory.
On the boys side, Roselle Catholic will face Pope John XXIII at 8 p.m. in a clash of the titans. There will be about nine or 10 Division I talents on the floor and potentially a few future NBA players. Roselle Catholic dropped a 103-34 bomb on Paulsboro in the semifinals, while Pope John held off a tough Newark Tech team that was the Cinderella story of the tournament after starting the season 4-11. Asbury Park resident Nazreon Reid, a 6-8 freshman phenom for Roselle, had four dunks in the obliteration of Paulsboro.
On Wednesday, we will be rolling out our All-Shore teams and award winners on the site on Wednesday. That day also marks the Shore Basketball Coaches Association Senior All-Star Games at Wall Township High School, with the girls game at 6 p.m. followed by the boys at 7:45 p.m. We will have a live radio broadcast of the boys game on 1160/1310 a.m. with audio streaming right here on the site. We wanted to do the girls game as well but there is a conflict with a Lakewood BlueClaws game.
BASEBALL
Check out the season preview for the Brick Green Dragons by Brick student Logan Stembel, who will be doing some work for SSN this spring. Our full baseball previews will be rolling out early next week.
More on Monday:
- A big night by former Manasquan star Michaela Mabrey helped Notre Dame women's basketball advance in the NCAA Tournament.
- A Cleveland Indians prospect gets motivation from his brother, who has a neuro-genetic disorder that leaves him unable to speak.
- A girls basketball player on a state championship team in Michigan has persevered through a syndrome that causes a rapidly beating heart just from being on her feet.
- The new Chevy Malibu comes with all sort of parental controls for teen drivers, from speed notifications to audio levels. My parents would have given me up for adoption if they had this in the 1990s.
- The most interesting man on Instagram.
On tap for tonight: As mentioned above, it's the Tournament of Champions finals out in Trenton. Parking is $10, and tickets are $8 for adults and $2 for students/senior citizens.
I'll end with former Jackson Memorial star Matt Thaiss hitting his seventh homer of the season for nationally-ranked Virginia. Thaiss is tied for first in home runs in Division I baseball.
More From Shore Sports Network
