2025 Boys Soccer Shore Conference Tournament Groups
The Shore Conference Tournament in soccer will be a World-Cup-style event for the third straight year in 2025 and it is now time to reveal the group alignment for next fall’s festivities. Some details about seeding after group play is concluded will be ironed out at the end of the summer, but there are a few more changes to the tournament already in place for the upcoming season.
The most noteworthy change at this point is that every Shore Conference team was given the chance to opt out of the SCT, which was not the case in each of the first two years of the current format. On the boys side of the tournament, four teams opted out of the 2025 tournament: Henry Hudson, Keyport, New Egypt and Point Pleasant Beach.
That leaves a 42-team field that will this year be split into eight groups — down from nine in 2024 and 11 in 2023. Six of the groups will have five teams and two will have six, with the top three finishers in each group qualifying for the tournament stage of the Shore Conference Tournament and the remaining teams entered into the Shore Conference Coaches Cup.
With eight groups and three qualifiers from each group, 24 teams will reach the 2025 Shore Conference Tournament. That will make awarding first-round byes a much cleaner process in 2025 compared to last two years. In 2023, one of the 11 group winners was forced to play a first-round game and in 2024, only five of the nine group winners — selected at random — were awarded first-round byes. This coming fall, all eight group winners will earn a first-round bye and the 16 other teams will be paired up for competition in the first round.
Once again, power points over the last two seasons were the basis for organizing the groups. The top eight teams by power points in 2023 and 2024 were drawn at random and assigned to their eight groups. The next eight teams (Nos. 9 through 16) were then drawn at random and assigned to groups, then again for the 17-to-24, 25-to-32 and 33-to-40 ranges of teams. Jackson Liberty and Red Bank Catholic were the two teams at the bottom of the power-point rankings and were also assigned to random groups.
Without further ado, here are the 2025 Boys Soccer Shore Conference Tournament groups.
| Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 4 |
| Howell | Colts Neck | CBA | Central |
| Middletown South | Shore | Toms River East | Rumson-Fair Haven |
| Lacey | Freehold Twp. | Manchester | Middletown North |
| Red Bank | Brick | Matawan | St. Rose |
| Neptune | Monmouth | Barnegat | Donovan Catholic |
| Group 5 | Group 6 | Group 7 | Group 8 |
| Holmdel | Manalapan | Toms River North | Southern |
| Ocean | Manasquan | Marlboro | Wall |
| Jackson Memorial | Point Boro | St. John Vianney | Long Branch |
| Raritan | Lakewood | Toms River South | Brick Memorial |
| Ranney | Freehold Boro | Asbury Park | Pinelands |
| Jackson Liberty | Red Bank Catholic |
Here is a quick synopsis of each of the eight SCT groups. Keep in mind, while we can project what rosters will look like come September, transfers, injuries and players coming back from or leaving for academy soccer will alter several rosters.
Group 1
Howell is the top team in this group by recent power points, but the Rebels will be without the players who helped them accumulate those power points after most of them graduate this coming spring. It makes this group a good draw for the teams that are not on the No. 1 line, which includes a pair of teams in Lacey and Red Bank that are each slated to return one of the top offensive players in the Shore Conference. Lacey reached the Shore Conference Tournament semifinals this past fall led by junior Tanner Grozinski and All-Shore sophomore goalkeeper Dylan Graham, along with a solid supporting cast of non-seniors. Red Bank can bring back Alex Salvo after the Second Team All-Shore selection led the Bucs to their first division title since 1972 and to an SCT berth by upsetting Howell in the group stage.
Middletown South will also be a while card in Group 1, as the Eagles have a chance to bring back a solid senior group that could conceivably include Luke Strada, who played in the MLS Next program this fall. Neptune rounds out this group after the Scarlet Fliers were a much improved team from 2023 thanks to the maturation of their younger players, although senior Julian Lemus carried the scoring.
Group 2
The reigning Shore Conference Tournament champions headline Group 2, with Colts Neck hoping to defend its 2024 title next fall. Sophomore sensation Sean Moore will be a junior next fall and while he will no longer have his older brother Kyle as a running mate — as well as All-Shore selections Sam Gershon in the midfield and Josh Appel in goal — he will be one of the top returning players in the state as long as he chooses to stick with high-school soccer. There will be more roster questions for Colts Neck than the Cougars faced this past year, but there is a solid core returning with Moore that will have championship experience in its recent past.
Shore and Freehold Township are the next two teams in Group 2, with Shore coming off a disappointing fourth-place finish in its group last fall, followed by a loss to Long Branch in the Coaches Cup final. Freehold Township was a surprising failed SCT qualifier in 2023, but bounced back to make the field in 2024. Brick is due to return most of its production from this past year and will be hungry for a spot in the SCT, while Monmouth Regional will have to replace a number of quality seniors.
Group 3
Christian Brothers Academy heads Group 3, with the Colts looking to return to their spot atop the Shore Conference in 2025 after finishing runner-up to Colts Neck in 2024. CBA was short on championship experienced on its roster this past fall and still managed to mount a spirited run at the title, so while there will be more questions to answer in 2025, CBA usual finds those answers.
Toms River East will be the second team in Group 3, although the graduation of three All-Shore players — Luke Bodziak, Tommy Renkin and goalkeeper Bobby Calvo — will be a lot to overcome. Manchester turned in another solid season in 2024 and is slated to return junior standout Brayden Kurak, which sets the Hawks up to potentially qualify next season after coming up short in each of the last two years while playing in very difficult groups. Matawan will be looking for its first SCT berth in the World Cup format, while Barnegat could be a sleeper, led by rising junior and top scorer Nate Scisco.
Group 4
A pair of teams with promising, senior-led 2025 rosters headline Group 4, starting with Central Regional. The Golden Eagles will have some re-aranging to do on the back line with the graduation of All-Shore standout Devont King-Reilly, but they also have a strong midfield due back and should be experienced in goal with Kaden Stout coming off his junior season. Rumson-Fair Haven, meanwhile, will have a lot of scoring to replace, but was junior-heavy in the midfield and in the back.
Middletown North — which reached the SCT semifinals in both 2022 and 2023 — was reliant on some very good seniors in 2024, but will likely have a handful of very capable returning players that should help the Lions survive the group stage for a third straight year. St. Rose, meanwhile, is coming off a difficult 2024 campaign, while Donovan Catholic will be trying to break through with a more experienced roster than it has had in a while.
Group 5
Even after a rather ordinary season by its lofty standards in 2024, Holmdel remains among the top power-point teams in the Shore Conference and is on the top line in Group 5. The Hornets are dearly going to miss Stepan Kapranov — the 2023 Shore Conference Player of the Year and a First-Team All-Shore selection in 2024 — and will have to scratch and claw to survive this group, let alone finish at the top. Group 3 also includes a resurgent Ocean squad that returned to the SCT semifinals in 2024 and is due to return a solid collection of talent, led by All-Shore rising junior Connor Shaw.
Jackson Memorial is another program with pedigree in Group 5 and the Jaguars also reached the SCT this past year with a team heavy on players who will be back in 2025. Raritan was a tough matchup for teams in 2024 and will bring back a handful of quality players, led by top scorer Owen Brackett. Ranney is the last team in Group 5, but the Panthers are a winning outfit that will have a solid group coming back in 2025 despite the graduation of 27-goal-scorer Saeed Torres.
Group 6
With a junior-heavy 2024 roster that finished ranked No. 3 in the final Shore Sports Insider rankings, Manalapan looks like the very early favorite to win the 2025 Shore Conference Tournament, which the Braves have not done since 2013. The Braves will definitely be the favorites to win Group 6, which includes a Manasquan team that has been competitive at the top of the Shore over the past several years, but will bring back very little starting experience outside leading scorer and All-Shore standout Cruz Farkas.
Group 6 is a six-team field, so Manasquan, Point Boro, Lakewood, Freehold Boro and Jackson Liberty will be scrapping for the final two spots in the tournament. Point Boro, meanwhile, has qualified for the SCT in each of the past two years and has enough due back in 2025 to make it three in a row. Lakewood figures to be a greater threat to qualify this year after getting stuck in difficult groups in each of the past two seasons, while Freehold Boro and Jackson Liberty hope to break through as well.
Group 7
Few programs in the Shore Conference in recent years have been as reliable as Toms River North, so while the Mariners will again have a collection of impact seniors to replace, they have a history of doing so successfully. Their Group 7 competition includes a Marlboro squad that will be in a similar position of having to replace some very good senior talent, so the battle for the No. 1 spot in Group 7 figures to be wide-open. That bodes well for St. John Vianney, which is due to bring back about half its starting lineup from a team that beat CBA in group play and defeated Marlboro on penalties in the first round of the tournament stage.
Toms River South entered 2024 a senior-dominated team, but came out of the season with a number of key contributors who are due back in 2025. That gives Group 7 four potential contenders for the top spot as we review the field eight months before a game will be played. Asbury Park rounds out Group 7 after the Blue Bishops put together a solid season in which they improved from the previous year.
Group 8
Home to both of the 2024 NJSIAA sectional champions from the Shore, Group 8 has a familiar feel to it. Southern, Long Branch and Brick Memorial all shared a group with one another last year as well, with Brick Memorial knocking Long Branch into the Coaches Cup with an early upset, but not before Long Branch took Southern to overtime in the final game of group play. Long Branch had to beat Southern to qualify and the Rams wound up holding serve at home and winning on a golden goal. Long Branch went on to win the Coaches Cup and its first NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III championship since 1997, while Southern crashed out of the SCT in the round of 16, only to rebound by winning its first ever Group IV championship and finishing No. 1 at the Shore.
Southern graduated most of its starting lineup, while Long Branch is set to bring back a mix of key contributors from last seasons’s late-blooming championship team. Brick Memorial is also coming off a season of progress, during which the Mustangs won a share of the Class C South division championship with a team that should mostly remain intact in 2025. Neither Long Branch nor Brick Memorial is on the second line of the group behind Southern — that distinction belongs to Wall, which will have some significant senior presence to replace, but a strong program in place that should give the Crimson Knights a good chance to qualify out of a six-team group with four contenders.
Pinelands and Red Bank Catholic round out Group 8 and while neither will enter 2025 with the credentials of the other four teams in the six-team group, both should be improved teams — particularly Red Bank Catholic and is strong core from the Class of 2028.
