St. Rose, Manasquan Make the SCT Girls Final

The Shore Conference Basketball Tournament will conclude Saturday at Monmouth University and we now know who will meet in one of the two championship games. 

Manasquan and St. Rose punched their title game tickets with dramatically different girls semifinal wins last night at Brick Memorial.

In the opener of the doubleheader the fifth seed Big Blue Warriors outlasted top-seed St. John Vianney 63-61 in an overtime thriller.  After struggling for much of the game Courtney Hagaman emerged as the hero when she grabbed a loose ball near the baseline and converted a twisting layup at the buzzer to give Squan the upset victory in a game we broadcast on the Shore Sports Network.

Hagaman scored all six of the Warriors overtime points but it was Marina Mabry who got them there as she scored 14 of her game-high 24 points in the 4^th quarter.  The 5’11 junior added 8 rebounds and 6 assists and earned our Klee’s Bar & Grill/Ocean Trophies Player of the Game award.

In the nightcap, second-seeded St. Rose and Rumson were tied 18-18 at the half before Kat Phipps woke the crowd up with a barrage of three-pointers in the 3^rd quarter.  Phipps hit four in-a-row, one longer than the other as the Purple Roses seized control and went on to oust the #3 seed Bulldogs 56-40.

Phipps, a 5’6 junior point guard, had made 36 three-pointers in 24 games before last night when she nailed five from long distance and finished with a game-high 20 points to earn our Player of the Game selection.

St. Rose and Manasquan will meet Saturday at 1pm in a rematch of the 2012 title game which saw the underdog Purple Roses prevail against a Warriors team that would go on to win the Tournament of Champions.

The boy’s semifinals are tonight at Brick Memorial and both games will be broadcast live on 1160 & 1310AM as well as shoresportsnetwork.com.  In the 6pm opener it will be top-seed Point Beach taking on #4 Matawan, who has had a magical season.  The nightcap will feature two longtime Shore Conference Tournament rivals as second-seed CBA clashes with defending champion and #3 seed Lakewood.