Girls Basketball – In the End, Manasquan and Marina Mabrey Have Their Shore Dynasty
WEST LONG BRANCH – When Marina Mabrey submitted her paperwork to transfer from Point Pleasant Beach High School back to Manasquan High School in early January of last year, the Manasquan players and coaches knew they were getting the player they needed to push the program to the top of the Shore Conference.
As it turned out, Mabrey needed the Warriors as much as they needed her.
It took some hard-to-swallow losses, two transfers by the team’s best player, a coaching change and the maturing of a young core of players, but Manasquan finally has its budding Shore Conference dynasty that appeared imminent when Mabrey was a freshman on a team with two other major Division I talents.
In Friday night’s 69-60 win over previously unbeaten St. Rose at the Monmouth University Multi-purpose Activities Center, Manasquan won its second straight Shore Conference Tournament championship behind Mabrey’s stat-line, for certain. She scored 24 of her game-high 29 points in the second half, including 17 in a third quarter that saw the Warriors outscore the top-seeded Purple Roses 26-16. Mabrey also pulled down eight rebounds, handed out four assists – all in the first half – and swiped three steals.
As impressive as her game read on paper, her ability to both fit in with the rest of the Manasquan team over these two years while also playing the role of a leader who can demand or coax an above-and-beyond performance from a teammate came into play in the hours before and during play Friday night.
“I told them in the beginning, 'Guys, this is not me today. I need you guys to play hard,’” Mabrey said. “I think they stepped up really well, and they helped me get out of my funk in the first half.”
“Our practices are so competitive all the time,” third-year coach Lisa Kukoda said. “They are all demanding things out of each other, they’re all holding each other accountable. Because we’re able to have those practices like that, it translates to the game situation and Marina is the one leading it all. She just demands it out of them and makes them constantly improve and it makes them players.”
To be clear, Manasquan was anything but a one-person band on Friday night. While Mabrey filled up the stat-sheet and ignited the game-breaking third quarter with a scoring outburst, Manasquan got a major contribution from all five starters, as well as junior Gillian Black off the bench. Black scored 11 points and hit two three-pointers – both off kick-outs from Mabrey.
“She’s playing amazing,” Black said of Mabrey. “She’s not taking bad shots, she’s dribbling into the defense and kicking it out and giving me and Courtney (Hagaman) a good opportunity to knock it down.
“I feel like she has a lot of trust in us now that we’re knocking down shots. I just hope it keeps going like that and I can keeping knocking them down and get her the assist.”
Hagaman – the only other senior in Manasquan’s starting lineup – also scored in double-figures, knocking down a pair of threes and finishing with 10 points. Sophomore center Victoria Galvan chipped in nine points while giving the Warriors a presence in the paint on both ends, and fellow sophomore Stella Clark added seven points, four assists and three steals.
In the case of each starter, Mabrey cited some sort of unique interaction with them prior to the game about the role they would play in the win. She shot around with Hagaman, handled some of the point guard duties for Clark and implored her to attack her defender without worrying about offensive sets, and also encouraged Black to let her shot fly.
The most obvious impact Mabrey had on a teammate Friday was on her younger sister, Dara. Like Marina, Dara Mabrey played in the Shore Conference Tournament final as a freshman with the role of defensive stopper in mind, and on Friday drew the assignment of guarding St. Rose senior guard Kat Phipps.
In the Feb. 14 meeting between the teams, Phipps scored 34 points and hit the deciding three-point shot in a 60-57 St. Rose win. Dara Mabrey limited Phipps to 10 points on 3-for-5 shooting, including two points in the first half.
“When Marina was my age, she was really good at defense and I hope to kind of spurt like her later and become a better offensive player, too,” Dara Mabrey said. “I just have a really fiery mentality, I guess you could say, and I really like defense.
“Marina’s like my best friend, though. She does everything for me. I would not be the player I am without her.”
Of course, Dara Mabrey cut her teeth as a defensive player by playing intense driveway games against Marina and their older sister Michaela, who is a junior at Notre Dame and a former McDonald’s All-American herself. Both of her older sisters currently have a height advantage of nearly half a foot on Dara, so the younger Mabrey has learned to compensate.
“From playing one-on-one in the driveway, she's relentless,'' Marina said. “I'm like throwing elbows like, 'Dara, get out of my face.' I know what it's like. That's why I always say, 'Coach put Dara on her.' She's a pain when she's playing you.
“I told her in the car, ‘Dara, I need to give you some tips’ and she (rolled her eyes) and was like, ‘Okay, go.’ I said, ‘You need to make her catch it in that spot,’ and Dara did just what I told her. She did what the coaches told her. My dad probably called her and told her what to do, too. She did what she was told and I’m really proud of her.”
With a first-hand experience guarding two McDonald’s All-Americans in her driveway and some sage advice from one of them, Mabrey held Phipps to a lower scoring total than the one Black turned in as the first person off the Manasquan bench.
“I always think, since my sister is who she is, if I can stop her or try to stop her, then I can stop anyone else,” Dara Mabrey said.
Marina Mabrey was a Shore Conference Tournament championship win away from beginning her career with an SCT title that could have possibly been the first of three or perhaps even four in her four high-school years. Manasquan would go on to win the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions title in 2012 after losing the SCT final to St. Rose, but the Warriors could not defend their T of C title or pursue the SCT championship with Michaela graduating and Marina and current Michigan freshman Katelynn Flaherty transferring from Manasquan to Point Pleasant Beach the following season.
Along with Flaherty, Mabrey led the Garnet Gulls to a Group I championship and a Tournament of Champions win in the duo’s only full season at Point Beach, but could not get past the SCT quarterfinals. Mabrey and Flaherty accounted for nearly all of the team’s scoring that season and after more of the same to begin the 2013-14 season, Flaherty transferred to Metuchen and Mabrey returned to Manasquan during the middle of her junior year looking to do things a little differently.
“I know freshman year, I was really young and didn’t really know what I was doing,” Mabrey said. “I was really the defensive player and I was still learning. Then sophomore year, it was like a two-man team and I came to realize this year and last year that scoring all the points, that’s not really that fun.”
Eventually, Mabrey ended up back where she started, and while the Manasquan program has benefited greatly from her return in the form of back-to-back SCT championships and a Tournament of Champions final appearance last year, the benefits have been mutual.
“Having the whole team involved when everyone is really anxious and really ready and everyone is impacting things; it makes everyone want to be a part of it and it’s a lot of fun when it’s a team-oriented thing,'' Mabrey said. "Coach Kukoda really taught me how to be a better team player.”
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