Championship Season

The season continues for the Point Boro girl’s basketball team while the championship dreams of the Manchester boys ended in heartbreak Tuesday night.
Boro made it back-to-back South Jersey Group 2 titles with a 55-43 win at Sterling as sophomore Kelly Hughes scored 25pts and senior Kelsey Haycook added 17.
The 25-4 Panthers will now face the state’s top-ranked team, Malcolm X. Shabazz in the group semifinals Thursday at Deptford. Shabazz rolled over Rumson last night to win the Central Jersey crown and improve to 31-0 on the season.

Manchester has sort of flown under the radar during a post-season run that landed them in the South Jersey Group 3 championship game at top-seed Kingsway. For most of the game things looked pretty good for the Hawks as they led by 10 points early in the second half and took a 3-point lead into the final quarter. However the Dragons rallied and two free throws with 20 seconds left gave them a 49-48 victory and their third consecutive sectional title. Nate Nickens had 16 points in the loss for Manchester.

The Ocean County College men’s basketball team boards a bus today for Sullivan Community College in New York which is the site of the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Tournament. The Vikings earned their second-ever trip to the national tournament after winning the Region 19 championship late last month and with a 19-9 record they may be the longest shot in the field of 8 teams from as far away as Texas, Coach Rory Caswell’s team will open the tournament tomorrow afternoon against Mass Bay Community College. The Vikings top players include sophomore Steven Sally of Central Regional and JaMario Clayton of North Carolina.

Brick Unico is an Italian-American service organization and among their programs is one in which they give scholarships to local college-bound students through the Brian Piccolo Awards. To help raise money for their scholarship fund the Brick chapter of UNICO National will hold a Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament on Friday, April 8 at VFW Post 8867 on Adamston Road. For more information you can call Phil Terranova at (732) 534-7446.