A Trio of Potential Champions

A little of this and a little of that following a weekend which gave us a preview of what winter is like as well as the reason why people who can head south.

A trio of Ocean County football teams will play for state sectional championships on Saturday. December 7^th with two of them looking to win their first in school history and the third trying to add to a long legacy.  Barnegat High School will face defending South Jersey Group 4 champion Delsea at Rowan University at 4 pm.

The Bengals, in just their 8^th season of varsity football, earned the title game appearance with a close win over Northern Burlington Friday and a day later Delsea pounded top-seed Manasquan to spoil what would have been an all-Shore title game.

However there will be two of those at The College of New Jersey on Saturday, December 7^th with the first at 10 am when Point Pleasant Beach plays Shore for the Central Jersey Group 1 championship.  For the Garnett Gulls it’s just their second trip to the finals with the other coming in 1982 and it will be the back end of two straight title-game matchups with the Blue Devils.  These two rivals will first play this Wednesday night in West Long Branch to decide the Class B Central crown.

For Brick High School it’s been a long wait for that elusive 7^th state title as number six came in 1994 with a last-minute win over Central.  They will also be facing a Shore Conference opponent in Colts Neck on that championship Saturday at TCNJ   with kickoff at 4pm.  The Green Dragons will have had two full weeks to prepare for the game while the Cougars must play district rival Howell on Thanksgiving morning.

Rumson and Manalapan are the other shore teams to have earned spots in state sectional finals.  The undefeated Bulldogs will play Weequahic at 7pm on Saturday, December 7 at Kean University while Manalapan tries again to win a first-ever state title against Hunterdon Central on Sunday, December 8^th at 7pm at Rutgers University.

Ocean County College is adding two new varsity sports for the 2014-15 school year and in the process of hiring head coaches and assistants for both.  Women’s Volleyball and Men’s Lacrosse will join the list of sports available to local student-athletes.

Those interested in coaching positions can apply by visiting ocean.edu and click on “jobs.”  Both sports are growing in popularity on the high school level in the shore area.