Mid-Monmouth boys basketball team wins second straight title
FAIR HAVEN, N.J. — Before last year, Fair Haven’s Mid-Monmouth program hadn’t won a championship game in 40 years, meaning never since the program’s inception. This year, the team not only won the championship game a second time but also beat Marlboro in front of a crowd of 200 people 56-44 after losing to them in the regular season 69-35.
Head Coach Chris Grier shared that the team was mostly focused on controlling the pace of the game, beating the press, keeping things under control, and playing the game they wanted to play the second time around. He shared that they won the semifinal game against Neptune by a single point before running through some plays with the boys Sunday morning ahead of the final game that same day. “One key point is that we’d talked about with the boys was keeping Marlboro to under 45 points, and we ended up holding them to 44 points, which was incredible,”
Grier said. “The special thing about this team is that they prioritize playing for Fair Haven and for themselves and each other.” Most of the kids on the team have been playing together since the third grade and their ability to perform as a cohesive unit has proved itself in the past two seasons.
“It takes the whole team to make it to the big games,” Grier said. “Every kid fills an important role for our team and all 12 kids on the roster helped us get to this point the last two years.”
As an eighth-grade team, this season closes out the kids’ middle school basketball careers, which makes for a “bittersweet” way to cap off the season, said Assistant Coach Dennis Sullivan. “Chris and I have been coaching this team since they were third graders, so this was a great way to finish that experience.
This season definitely wasn’t as easy as last season felt, but the team worked hard to overcome the obstacles we came across this year,” Sullivan shared. “It’s a bittersweet way to end the season. Some of the boys are going to different high schools while some are going to RFH, so it’ll be exciting to see them all flourish in their own places throughout their high school careers.”
Congratulations to the Fair Haven Eighth Grade Boys Mid-Monmouth: Brody Mauro #0, Cole Hogan #1, Casey Moore #2, Cole Spoonire #3, Ben Gredell #4, Jack Crossnan #8, Danny Sullivan #9, Keegan Kearns #11, Henry Schirick #13, Jack Kingery #14, Ben Padula #15, Will Grier #33, Manager Rocco Ruscigno, and Head Coach Chris Grier and Assistant Coach Dennis Sullivan!
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