Monroe Kicks Off Spring With Win Over St. Rose While South River Loses Close One To Toms River East
NEPTUNE, NJ–On Monday, March 29th, the 2010 Hoop Group Headquarters Spring League got underway. This is the earliest that this league has started at least since GMC Hoops has been covering it for the past five years. This year, there are just 16 teams in the league including two from the Greater Middlesex Conference. For the second straight year, and fourth in the past five, the Monroe Falcons are participating in the Spring League.
The Purple Birds got off to a solid start in Division A with a 64-48 victory over St. Rose of Belmar. In the three other games in Division A, Neptune cruised past Manasquan (62-36), Asbury Park Black defeated Ocean Township (51-45), and St. John Vianney defeated Point Pleasant Boro (40-36). It will be interesting to see how Manasquan shapes up this spring. With the loss of standout Matt Vadas, the Warriors will have to fill a big void. After defeating Middlesex in the quarterfinal round of the Central Jersey Group II State Tournament, Manasquan fell to finalist Willingboro (53-51) in the semifinals. In a similar predicament is Vianney, which will be looking to fill the gap left behind by former Ridge standout, Ishaq Pitt.
Asbury Park Black and Neptune figure to be among the top teams in this division. Asbury Park repeated as the Central Jersey Group I Champion after it defeated top seeded South Hunterdon on the road in the Championship. The Bishops ended up losing to South Jersey Group I champion, Woodbury in the state semifinals. Meanwhile, Neptune reached the Central Jersey Group III Championship before losing to Jerrod Davis and Lakewood in that tourney’s title game.
It wasn’t anticipated that Point Pleasant Boro would reach the Championship Game of the South Jersey Group III State Tournament, but the Panthers did before bowing out against Kingsway. Point Boro is one of the top teams in Ocean County year in and year out. They’ve played in all kinds of tourneys over the past few seasons including Central Jersey Group II, South Jersey Group II, Central Jersey Group III, and South Jersey Group III. St. Rose won its opening round game against Moorestown Friends in the Non-Public B South State Tourney, but then was soundly defeated by eventual Tournament of Champions winner, Trenton Catholic. The Roses had reached at least the semifinal round of the Non-Public B South State Tourney in the two previous years.
Ocean Township reached the Final Four of the CJ Group III Tourney before losing to Class B North Division rival, Neptune. Moving over to Division B, South River made a big splash on the first night by only losing to Group IV Toms River East by a 45-44 count. The Rams are coming off an 11-16 regular season campaign, which was their first double digit win season since 2005. Rodney Harris knows that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but he’s determined to get South River better as quickly as possible. So, it was back to work for the Spring League.
Looking at the rest of the Division, two teams were added to the league after the first week of play. Bob Gomulka brought in his two G-Force teams from Union County. Asbury Park has a second team in this division while Lacey, Southern Regional, and Toms River East all hail from the Class A South Division of the Shore Conference. Both Lacey and Southern Regional qualified for their respective state tournaments. The Lions lost to Pemberton in the opening round of the South Jersey Group III State Tournament while Southern Regional was defeated by Cherry Hill East in the South Jersey Group IV State Tournament. Rounding out the Division are the Sabertooths, an AAU team from Manalapan.