Jackson Memorial – Central Jersey Sports Radio

A thrilling run for Monroe in the state tournament – including an upset of GMCT champion Old Bridge in the sectional semifinals – has come to an end.

Despite a tight game early, a four-run 4th inning, clutch defense, and outstanding pitching that propelled the Jackson Memorial Jaguars to a 5-1 victory in the Central Jersey Group 4 Championship game on Monday afternoon down in Ocean County.

In that frame, Jack Osmond walked in a run, Julian Caruso hit a sacrifice fly to center to drive in another, Nick Izzo then singled to center to drive in a third, and Brady Wendell topped it off with a single to right-centerfield to make the score 5-1.

The Jags never looked back.

The game had the vibe from first pitch that it was going to be a 1-0 kind of game featuring a pitchers duel between Javoni Hallihan of the Jags and Zack Wallace of the Falcons. And for a while, it continued to look like that.

Neither team had a hit until the third inning, Wallace struck out five of the first six batters he faced, and both teams couldn’t get that big hit early on.

Then the story of the game changed.

Brady Wendell hit a five-hopper to first base but the ball was bobbled by Falcons’s first baseman Harrison Lollin allowing Julian Caruso to score the game’s first run in the bottom of the third.

But the Falcons played small ball to tie up the score in the top of the fourth, when Zack Wallace bunted towards the mound and Nick Fletcher ran on home to even things up at 1-1.

While the Falcons got runners on base in innings tow, three and four, they were only able to drive in one run, including when they loaded the bases as Hallihan did his best Houdini impression to get out of an inning unscathed.

Wallace recorded seven strikeouts in four innings and allowed five runs, four of them earned before being replaced on the mound by Lucas White.

Monroe was two-hit in the game: a single each by Justin Mangano and Nick Fletcher.

They finish the season 16-10, while Jackson improves to 18-10. They will take on South 4 champion Eastern (24-6) Wednesday in the Group 4 semifinals. The fifth-seeded Vikings were 4-2 winners over seven-seed Egg Harbor Township. The winner of that game will play for the state Group 4 title at 7 pm Saturday in at Veterans’ Park in Hamilton against the winner of the other semifinal between North 2 champion Bridgewater-Raritan and North 1 champ Livingston.

Story by Vin Ebenau.

Click below for postgame reaction presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

Monroe head coach Sean Field

Jackson Memorial head coach Pat George

The Monroe Falcons girls’ basketball team had lost twice to South Brunswick this year, and the third time turned out to be the charm.

A semifinal win over the Vikings Saturday morning – on the road, mind you – now has them in the Central Jersey Group 4 title game against another somewhat familiar foe. They’ll take on defending champion Jackson Memorial, a team they don’t play all too frequently, but which knocked them out of the CJ4 bracket in last year’s semifinals.

Everyone remembers, and you know how things go in the state tournament.

Monroe is 17-9 this season, fairly on par with last year’s 18-6 campaign. Jackson is 20-9 under head coach Rachel Goodale – the sister of Rutgers wrestling coach Scott Goodale – also about where they were last year.

So how do things go in the state tournament?

Well, when the third-seeded Falcons beat 2-seed South Brunswick on Saturday, they probably figured they should hire a bus just down the road to Hightstown, the top-seed, for Monday night. But as it turns out, the Jaguars upset the Rams, 61-44 Saturday, leaving Monroe as the higher seed, and thus hosting a title game for the first time since 2016. They won CJ4 that year, too, beating Hunterdon Central before losing to South 4 champ Lenape in the group semifinals.

The Falcons have only one player scoring in double figures on the season, and don’t go terribly deep, but their starting five all averages at least seven-and-a-half points a game. Junior Halley Cottrell leads with 11.8 per contest, though it’s sophomore Evangelina Francisco who has really come on in the NJSIAA Tournament.

Of her five highest games the entire season, the last three in the states all figure into that mix, including a career-best 26 – her only 20-plus point game ever – in the semifinals against South Brunswick. She’s averaging 12.7 points a game in the playoffs.

No other Falcon has more than one 10-plus point game in the last three. But they really haven’t had to, and Francisco will look to continue the hot hand.

But in all, the lineup is steadied by two seniors – Haley Higgins and Katie Louro – who have been starters all four years in high school, and have been a part of 71 total victories in that span, an enormous feat considering 2021 was shortened by COVID.

Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with Monroe seniors Haley Higgins and Katie Louro:

As for Jackson, they’ve had a similar season to last year, record-wise. They made it through the preliminary round of the Shore Conference Tournament – an invitational, not an automatic qualifier tourney like the GMC – with a win over Monmouth, before getting bounced by St. Rose of Belmar in the first round. They were 8-2 in the Shore A South division, finishing second to Toms River North. But the Mariners were bounced from South 4 in the semifinals by Lenape.

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Senior Zoie Maffei is the top scorer, at 18.2 points a game, and fellow senior Chloe Messer is right behind at 13.7. And they have a little more height than Monroe, which could present some matchup problems.

In the 61-44 semifinal win over Hightstown, the Jags got a double-double from Maffei – 12 points and 10 rebounds – while another senior, Kamile Makselyte – added 18 points and 12 boards.