Monday Madness/Weekend Extras/Games to Watch This Week

Posted by Scott Stump

Just when I thought the Top 10 was somewhat stabilizing, it was torn to shreds about six hours after I posted it thanks to a Monday night headlined by Freehold Township’s takedown of No. 1 Middletown North and Mater Dei Prep’s stunner of Asbury Park. I’ll take a look at that, some extras from the weekend and a look ahead at other games to watch the rest of this week. Let’s get to it.

Player of the Night

(tie) John Horrigan, Jr., C, Freehold Township; Sam Miles, So., G, Mater Dei Prep

Horrigan poured in a game-high 24 points and had 7 rebounds to help Freehold Township control the glass and exploit Middletown North’s lack of size up front, which no team had really done this season. It resulted in a 69-54 win that ended the Lions’ 12-game winning streak and sent Class A North back into chaos with three teams tied for first with two divisional losses apiece. Horrigan is not an explosive athlete but he knows angles well and has good strength. Once he roots himself on the block, you can’t move him off of it, and he hits his free throws and makes lay-ups. He’s not going to have a bunch of highlight plays, but you look up at the end and the stat sheet is full.

I couldn’t leave out Miles because no one saw that Mater Dei Prep stunner over Asbury Park coming. Miles had 11 of his 23 in the fourth quarter to bring home an eye-opening win. While senior Ryan Yetman, who had 22 points, has been a mainstay for the Seraphs, Miles has shown a lot of promise as a sophomore and gives Mater Dei reason for optimism in the future.

Thoughts/Notes from the weekend/Monday

—I was wondering when an A North team was finally going to pack in a zone and force Middletown North to make jumpers all day. Freehold Township was the first one to really go to it, and it helped fluster the Lions. Freehold Township is normally, a pressing, trapping, run-and-jump man-to-man team, so the zone was far from its bread-and-butter. Give head coach Brian Golub credit for scrapping his usual approach and making the change. He had to do something after North put a 36-point beating on the Patriots in their first meeting on North’s home floor.

However, maybe even more impressive was the fact that Freehold Township scored 69 points on a team that was routinely holding opponents in the 40s and 50s. They won the battle on the boards and that proved to be a huge difference in reversing a 76-40 beatdown from their first game. In addition to Horrigan, senior guard Casey Skievaski was great with 14 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists.

—The whole time the Patriots were winning, all I could remember was Middletown North with its starters still in the game up by 30 in the mid-fourth quarter in their first meeting and Golub shooting sideways glances at Middletown North head coach Mike Iasparro. Golub said, “I’ve got a long memory,” as the Lions were pouring it on. I’m sure yesterday’s win was a sweet one. It also could be the second of potentially four meetings if the two lock horns in the Shore Conference and Central Jersey Group IV tournaments.

—At least Middletown North is forced to deal with facing the zone now. They saw it, and now they have to adjust to it because you known everyone and their grandmother is going to try to defend the Lions this way now. There’s a big difference between going over it in practice and seeing it live, so now Middletown North knows what it’s going to have to clean up along with the rebounding.

—Class A North is going to be a furious fight to the end. Manalapan, Middletown North and Freehold Township are all tied for first and Christian Brothers Academy is one game behind. Freehold Township plays Manalapan on Thursday in a huge game, and Middletown North and Manalapan still have to face CBA for a second time. Should be fun.

—Freehold Township needs to make up its mind. I have junior Dylan Burns hitting me up on Twitter saying not to cover any of the Patriots’ games any more because I’m a jinx, and then I have members of the Patriots’ Bleacher Creature student section busting my chops for missing a good game on Monday. I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

—The Mater Dei Prep win is a testament to the effort by the Seraphs and the coaching of Bob Klatt. Mater Dei entered at 3-11 and had already been waxed once on the road by Asbury Park, so on paper you would think they didn’t have a whole lot to play for. That effort says something about the character of the players and coaches. Sam Miles and Ryan Yetman combined for 45 points and the Seraphs may have caught the Blue Bishops looking ahead to an important divisional game at Keansburg on Thursday. Mater Dei is a young team, and that’s the kind of confidence-booster than can help a group like that make a leap forward.

As for Asbury Park, if that isn’t a wakeup call, nothing is. I thought this team was going to blow through B Central this season, but it has been far from the case. Maybe they bought into too much of their own hype early on and felt like they were just going to roll over teams and haven’t been able to deal with adversity when they are in a tight game. The good news is that they still have games against Point Beach and Keansburg, and if they win them both they can still win the division title outright provided they win their other divisional games.

—Congrats to Colts Neck senior guard Sean O’Reilly, who scored his 1,000th career point in the second quarter of a win over Red Bank Catholic last night. He joins senior forward Hunter Wysocki in the 1,000-point club for the Cougars, and is the third Shore Conference player this season along with Point Boro’s Shaun Cooke and Raritan’s Mike Aaman to hit the mark. Next up looks to be Middletown North senior Jason Huelbig.

—Raritan just continues to own Rumson-Fair Haven, and the Rockets are quietly right in the hunt for a second straight division title. As great as the coaching job that reigning All Shore Media Coach of the Year Denis Caruano did last season, he might be doing an even better one this season with a team that has one superstar (Mike Aaman) and an entirely new group of guards and bench players that struggled badly at points this season.

—He doesn’t get a ton of attention because his young team has struggled, but keep an eye on St. John Vianney senior center Arick Sodini. At 6-6, he can play with his back to the basket and face up. He’s not big, but has good length and is versatile enough to make it hard for most teams to match up with him. He had a career-high 31 points in a win over Matawan to give the Lancers their first win in Class A Central and their second win overall.

—Ocean is quietly 9-5 after going 6-19 last season. The Spartans battled injuries early on, but have been right in the mix behind the big two of Colts Neck and Neptune in Class B North and also have a solid nondivisional win over Barnegat. Senior forward Nick Gallombardo and junior guard Alex Cirlincione have led the way for an underrated defensive team. They could be the type to spring an upset in an early-round state playoff or SCT game.

—As for this past weekend, the big win was Jackson Memorial’s 44-41 triumph over Freehold Township on Saturday, which became magnified when Freehold Township went out and stunned Middletown North yesterday. Jackson is the best defensive team that I’ve seen this season because its length is so bothersome, particularly on the perimeter, where the long arms of 6-5 senior Brandon Holup and 6-7 senior Brandon McDonnell, the latter of whom also had 17 points and 11 rebounds in the win, make  it tough to get any clean looks. McDonnell, who has offers from Navy, New Hampshire and Dartmouth, has now added interest from St. Peter’s, according to Jaguars coach Joe Fagan.

I also like 6-8 sophomore Eric Carter. He is athletic and made two nice moves off the dribble against Township but just couldn’t finish. That will come with time and more refinement, but he has potential. You have to think he could potentially be 6-10 by the time he is a senior, and if he continues to polish his game, no team in the Shore will have a match-up to stop him. Actually, he may already be 6-10 if you count his old school, Kid-and-Play box haircut, which is one of the most awesome looks in the Shore.

The funny thing about Jackson is that while their length helps on defense, it doesn’t seem to be a factor on offense. The Jaguars are like a European team on offense because Holup and McDonnell are primarily wing players who want to shoot jumpers. Neither of them really post up anybody, so when they have the size advantage, they don’t really use it in a traditional way.

Good to see Jackson Memorial point guard Elliot Bell back in the fold this season. I wrote a feature for the latest issue of our newspaper, the All Shore Media Sports Review, on everything Bell underwent last season, when he had to watch Jackson’s tremendous year from the stands after being declared ineligible.

—Southern 6-5 sophomore Mike Gesicki has really turned it on in the past few weeks. He had 25 points and 12 boards in a win over Toms River South on Friday that helped the Rams keep the pressure on Jackson Memorial in Class A South. Another Shore Conference coach recently told me he thought Gesicki, a great athlete and explosive leaper, was the best pure prospect in the entire Shore, but because of his prowess in football and volleyball, he may never realize his full potential in basketball. From what I hear, Gesicki’s best sport may be volleyball, which is scary given the potential he has shown in the other two sports.

—Neptune had a heart-breaker on the road in a one-point loss to a Trenton team that is 11-1. Even though it was a tough one to swallow, Neptune now has the added experience of playing a good team in a hostile gym and battling until the end. People wonder sometimes why a Neptune or others will get the benefit of the doubt by me in the Top 10 rankings after a hard loss. It’s because they actually go out and play good teams rather than just play their division schedule and line up a bunch of cream puffs in their other games. They actually challenge themselves rather than puff their chest out about their hollow record.

Alumni Update

Junior forward Mike Engemann (CBA) nailed six 3-pointers and scored a career-high 27 points for Roger Williams University in a win over Salve Regina Saturday. Rogers Williams also includes freshman guard Adam Cook (Manasquan) and junior guard James LeCardi (Rumson-FH). Click here for more

Games to watch the rest of this week:

Tuesday

Jackson Memorial at Toms River North, 6:30 p.m.: The Jaguars will try to put a little more separation between themselves and the rest of Class A South while looking to beat Toms River North for the third time this season.

Point Boro at Manasquan, 6:30 p.m.: The old rivals go at it in a key Class C Central game to remain in the hunt behind division leader Lakewood.

Wednesday

CBA at St. Anthony, 5 p.m.: The Colts go up to Jersey City to play New Jersey’s No. 1 team and a top five team in the country when they face the unbeaten Friars in their annual meeting. Might not be pretty for the visitors.

Thursday

Neptune at Colts Neck, 6:30 p.m.: This is the game of the week in the whole Shore Conference. No. 2 Neptune plays No. 3 Colts Neck, and given Middletown North’s loss on Monday, this game is essentially to be the new No. 1 team in the Shore. Neptune can also all but wrap up its second straight outright Class B North title, while a Colts Neck win would most likely result in a shared title because the Cougars lost to Neptune in their first meeting.

Asbury Park at Keansburg, 5:15 p.m.: Asbury Park will try to recover from an upset loss to Mater Dei Prep by facing a Keansburg team having one of its best starts ever at 12-2. The two teams are tied for first in Class B Central, so this is huge for the divisional race. Asbury Park won the first meeting this season.

Freehold Township at Manalapan, 4 p.m.: One of these teams will keep its hope alive for at least a share of the Class A North title while the loser may be on the outside looking in. The teams have split this season, with Freehold Township winning the more recent meeting by 20 points, and the Patriots enter sky-high after a takedown of No. 1 Middletown North.

Friday

Jackson Liberty at Lakewood, 6:30 p.m.: Jackson Liberty stunned the Piners in their first meeting for their first win ever over Lakewood, so the home team will be out for revenge and to stay alone in first place in Class C Central.

Saturday

Holmdel at Middletown North, 2:30 p.m.: Two top-five teams in the Shore square off, with Holmdel looking to continue to surprise.

Lakewood at Point Beach, 1:30 p.m.: These teams have played some great games in recent seasons, and this is a good nondivisional game with SCT seeding implications.