Tag: Jordan Barnes

by Mike Pavlichko

Stellar sophomore campaign earns East Brunswick’s Ava Catanho CJSR GMC Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year

We get asked a lot about our process for naming a Player of the Year. It starts out that they have to be really good, of course, but there are a lot of very good ball players out there.

So, our next criteria is the value to their team. A team is just that, never one player, but sometimes, there’s one star who stands out, without whose contributions the success of that season might very well not have been possible.

For East Brunswick, that’s sophomore Ava Catanho.

Sure, senior Julianna DelosSantos-Branson had a huge impact, nearly averaging a double-double, with 64 steals, and no one really knew what she might be able to do this year coming off an ACL injury. Juniors Sophia Tannura and Zoey Alexio could hit the three, with 50 each. And sophomore Ave Krzywdzinski dished the ball to the tune of 161 assists with the best of them.

But without Catanho – the team’s top scorer with 543 points (18.7 per game) and a team-best 61 treys, and now a member of the 1,000 point club (at 1,011 and counting) – East Brunswick doesn’t reach the GMC Tournament finals, nor do the Lady Bears get to the CJ4 semis.

And for that reason, Catanho is our 2025-26 GMC Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year.

Catanho also has the athletic lineage: her mother, Kara (nee Motusesky), is an assistant under Travis Retzlaff, who was named CJSR Coach of the Year in the GMC as well, and was a thousand-point scorer at East Brunswick when she was in high school. Her father is Alcides Catanho, a standout football player at Elizabeth and Rutgers who spent two seasons in the NFL with New England and Washington.

“I’ve been shooting since I was in the crib,” Ava says.

And she’s still going to be shooting for years to come.

Click below to listen to East Brunswick sophomore Ava Catanho – with additional comments from head coach Travis Retzlaff – with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Jordan Barnes, St. Thomas Aquinas: Barnes finishes a four-year career in North Edison with 1,385 points and 746 rebounds, good for career averages of 11.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. This year, she averaged 16.2 points and 5.6 boards in helping lead STA to its record seventh straight GMC Tournament championship, and next year, she’ll be playing at Rider.
  • Trista Whitney, St. Thomas Aquinas: The senior – who played her first year at Edison – also has been a huge factor in the last three championship seasons for the Trojans. This year, she averaged 11.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, and next year, will play at Maryland-Eastern Shore.
  • Angel Smith, Woodbridge: The senior was consistent for the Lady Barrons, scoring double figures in all but four games this year, while also registering 15 double-doubles. She hit for 15.7 points per game and 11.2 boards, helping Woodbridge flip the script this year, going 17-9 coming off a 6-19 campaign a year ago.
  • Layla Gutierrez, North Plainfield: Finishing her career with 1,289 points, the senior was one of the league’s most prolific scorers the last three seasons. She even dropped 50 in a GMC Tournament game this season against New Brunswick, less than a month after scoring 42 against South Brunswick. And she opened the season with 30 against a solid Piscataway team.
  • Gabrielle Hill, Spotswood: Though her scoring was down a tad from last year (15.4 to 13.8), the junior more than doubled her rebounding numbers from a year ago, grabbing 6.4 a game this year. She also got to the foul line 24 more times and hit 34 triples on the season for the Chargers.
by Mike Pavlichko

Make it seven straight for St. Thomas Aquinas: Trojans top East Brunswick, 62-41, to win yet another GMC Tourney title

It never gets old for St. Thomas Aquinas.

Having won six straight GMC Tournament titles coming in to Friday night’s 40th championship game, second-seed East Brunswick hung around for a while. The Bears were down just six after one, and even had a chance to cut it to nine before the half, but missed a three and ended up down 12.

But the third quarter was the difference. Things opened up – for both teams – but the last thing anyone wants to do is get into a track meet with St. Thomas. They did, and STA extended its lead to 49-29 at the end of three, and by that time, it was well in hand.

In the end, it ended up as a 62-41 win for the top-seed St. Thomas Aquinas (22-5) over second-seed East Brunswick (21-5), as heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio. It was the Trojans’ seventh straight title, extending their GMC-record streak, the longest for either the boys or girls in the 40-year history of the event.

Senior Jordan Barnes was the game’s high scorer, finishing with 20 points. She was MVP as a sophomore, and probably anyone could have been, but it went to Leah Kearney, well-deserved with a 12-point night, averaging 10 per game in the four tournament games.

The win wa also the 80th straight over GMC opponents – regular season and postseason – with their last loss coming in January of 2022, here against Monroe.

That means the senior fore of Barnes, Trista Whitney – who had nine in the final – and Kayla Navarro never lost a single game against a GMC opponent.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with junior and GMC Tournament MVP Leah Kearney, senior Trista Whitney, head coach Tim Corrigan, and senior Jordan Barnes, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

Five-peat! St. Thomas Aquinas girls take out Colonia to win 5th straight GMCT title

In the 2023 Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament final, frosh Jordan Barnes was getting her feet wet. She played in the game, but didn’t score.

Friday night in the 2024 title game, she scored 23 points – to match her number – and was named MVP.

You could say “What a difference a year makes,” but that would be an understatement.

Losing several key players to graduation and transfer and with a new head coach in Tim Corrigan – who was on last year’s staff as an assistant – one could be forgiven if they discounted the Trojans in 2023.

But they’d have to eat some crow now.

The top-seeded Trojans (21-7) won their fifth title in a row, seventh GMC title, and eighth county championship overall, beating second seed Colonia (19-8) at Monroe Township High School 71-52 as heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Aquinas came out on fire, up 11-0 to start the game. But Taylor Derkack answered with back-to-back-to-back threes to cut it to 11-9. That was as close as they’d get the rest of the way.

The Trojans played lock down defense on everyone else – Derkack finished with 30 – and only two Colonia players scored in the first half; they were down 36-23 at the half. The second half was more of the same.

Barnes took tough feeds down low and turned them into easy buckets all night, exploiting her height advantage.

Junior Gianna Chuffo finished with 16 for the winning Trojans, while sophomore Trista Whitney had 13.

Click below for postgame reaction presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: