Monmouth County, Home of Champions

The high school basketball season has ended for Ocean County teams but quite a few from Monmouth County are celebrating state sectional titles and still playing for even bigger hardware.

Last night the boy’s teams from Shore and CBA claimed championships which is fairly common for the Colts but was a long-time coming for the Blue Devils. Shore avenged a loss in last year’s Central Jersey Group 1 final by closing the game on a 20-5 run to dethrone two-time champion Point Beach 62-44 on the Garnett Gulls home court.

It’s the first sectional title since 1967 for Shore and comes in Frank Carmody’s first year as head coach. What stood out to me was the Blue Devils hit all 26 of their free throws which is a lost art in a day when everyone wants to chuck 3-pointers. Shore will face Paulsboro tomorrow night at the Pine Belt Arena in Toms River in the Group 1 Semifinals.

While CBA didn’t have to wait 48 years between titles the Colt Crazies had not celebrated a championship since 2009 but that drought ended with an 83-77 win over St. Augustine in the South Jersey Non-Public “A” final at Jackson Liberty High School. Jack Laffey scored a career-high 38 points and Pat Andree added 28 for CBA who only 11 days earlier scored just 24 total points while losing to Rumson in the Shore Conference Tournament Championship game. CBA heads to Toms River Saturday to play either Seton Hall Prep or Pope John in the Non-Public A Final.

The other Boys team from the shore still playing is Manasquan, who won the Central Jersey Group 2 title Monday and will face Camden tonight in the group semifinals.

On the girls side Manasquan needed overtime to get past rival Rumson 84-70 in the Central Jersey Group 2 final. The visiting Bulldogs rallied to tie the game on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Katie Foos, whose father has twice performed knee surgery on me. Manasquan dominated the overtime to keep their season alive and join Middletown South, St. John Vianney and Marlboro in winning sectional titles Tuesday with St. Rose shooting to join them tonight.

The Pine Belt Arena will be a busy place beginning tomorrow with 17 games scheduled over a 9-day period through March 20th.