Coach of the Year

It’s not every year that a boys basketball team at Marlboro enters the year with the expectations the Mustangs had for themselves in 2016-17. The program had not won a Class A North championships since the early 1970’s, had never been past the round of 16 in the Shore Conference Tournament and had never won an NJSIAA sectional title, but the returning talent suggested this year could put an end to

The first two years of Dan Curcione’s head-coaching tenure at Wall didn’t exactly go as planned, but all along he knew this season’s group of seniors had the goods to return the program to glory. After going 3-7 in 2014 and 4-6 last season, Wall returned to the promised land this fall by going 10-2 and claiming the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III title, the program’s first state championships since

Every summer, Asbury Park boys soccer coach Jean Dortissant returns to his native Haiti to visit some family and friends who still live there. The sights and sounds not only bring him back to the before his family moved to the United States in 1989, but they place him in the shoes of most of the players in his program...

From the second he took over as Manasquan’s head coach prior to the 2015 season, Sean Cunningham knew he had a program ready to take a major jump. HIs job was to corral the talent and push them to previously unreached heights. So far he’s done a pretty darn good job of that...

To win more games than any coach in the state of New Jersey takes a long time and Toms River South coach Ken Frank has been the Indians skipper for a long time. It also takes some special seasons, and Frank has had plenty of those as well...

The 2015-16 boys basketball season at Mater Dei Prep was as much a choice as it was an accomplishment and the decision to go for a Shore Conference Tournament championship was officially made on June 10, 2015. It was on that day that the newly-formed Board of Trustees at the school – created in the wake of a fundraising effort that pulled the school off life support after St...

With a roster full of talented and experienced players, Middletown South entered the 2015 season with great expectations as the No. 1 team in the Shore Sports Network Top 10. What the Eagles ended up accomplishing somehow exceeded those lofty goals, and a major reason why was the guidance of 2015 Shore Sports Network Coach of the Year Steve Antonucci...

When Dan Keane decided to return to coaching following the 2011 season, he knew he was passing up a chance to go out on the highest of notes. Ultimately, though, he still wanted to coach and while the lore of retiring after a 21-0 season would be too much for some at that stage of a coaching career, Keane thought he had one more year to give...

For the first time in more than a decade and only the second time in history, a Shore Conference baseball team won all five possible championships – division, county, conference, state sectional and group – and in this particular case, it was good enough to land said team in the No...

Before this season even began, Middletown South was behind the eight ball. The Eagles lost a key piece of their lineup and a Division I talent when senior Jill Falvey, a St. Francis (Pa.) recruit, suffered a season-ending torn ACL in the final practice of the preseason...

In his first five seasons as the Rumson-Fair Haven boys basketball head coach, Chris Champeau made the Bulldogs program into everything he envisioned it would be. Champeau’s bunch earned a reputation for being a scrappy team, one known as much for its cheering from the bench so over the top it might seem sarcastic if it were not so enthusiastic as it was for twice nearly bringing a tournament cham

Brick Memorial turned in one of its best seasons in history in 2014-2015, no small feat for a program of the Mustangs’ stature. A major reason was the guidance of second-year coach Mike Denver, the 2015 Shore Sports Network Wrestling Coach of the Year...