2026 Shore Sports Insider Baseball Player of the Year: Tyler Garbooshian, Brick Memorial

Halfway through his high school career, Tyler Garbooshian was known more for what he would do after high school than for what he was doing during it. To start at shortstop as both a freshman and a sophomore was an accomplishment in and of itself, but he was also a prominent player for a team that consistently ended its season with heartbreak and disappointment.

Garbooshian verbally committed to Rutgers University before playing his first game as a freshman at Brick Memorial High School, then ended each of his first two seasons with home losses to double-digit seeds in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III playoffs. The silver lining for Garbooshian and his teammates is that they didn’t own that legacy all to themselves: the losses in 2023 and 2024 extended Brick Memorial’s streak to nine straight first-round losses in the NJSIAA Tournament.

Over the past two years, however, Brick Memorial has completely rewritten its story as a program, and this past season, Garbooshian was the main character in that redemption story. Now, the future Scarlet Knight does have a legacy that belongs to him: 2026 Shore Sports Insider Player of the Year.

During his senior season, Garbooshian raised his game to new heights while leading Brick Memorial to its second straight trailblazing season. After winning their first Shore Conference Tournament championship in program history to go along with a Shore Conference Class A North division championship and a No. 1 finish in the 2025 Shore Sports Insider Final Top 10, the Mustangs complemented those titles this spring with their first Ocean County Tournament championship since 1996 and their first-ever NJSIAA sectional championship.

“He has always been so good, but there has always been a lot of pressure on him,” Brick Memorial coach Evan Rizzitello said of Garbooshian after he homered for a third straight game in the NJSIAA Tournament. “He committed so early (to Rutgers), and everybody knows his name, but you still have to go out and play really well, and he does. I’m glad he is playing his best when it matters most.”

Garbooshian hit in several spots in Brick Memorial’s batting order while continuing his stellar shortstop play for a fourth straight varsity season. Once the state tournament arrived, however, Garbooshian had settled into the leadoff spot and was a fire-starter for Brick Memorial’s relentless lineup. Whether it was leading off with home runs in back-to-back rounds of the tournament against Hopewell Valley and Colts Neck or delivering the game-tying RBI single and scoring the winning run in the bottom of the seventh in the Group III semifinal against Delsea, Garbooshian routinely delivered exactly what his team needed at the plate, in the field, and on the bases in the season’s most crucial moments.

By the overall numbers, Garbooshian was as good as anyone in the Shore Conference at the plate. He finished third at the Shore in batting average at .505, third in on-base percentage at .642, and fifth in slugging percentage at .817. His 47 hits, 50 runs scored, 134 plate appearances, and 32 walks all led the conference; his 17 extra-base hits and 28 stolen bases both tied for third, and his 34 RBI tied for fourth.

 

Tyler Garbooshian Career Totals

Year	PA	AB	H	BB	2B	3B	HR	R	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLUG
2023	64	53	18	8	5	1	0	11	14	8	.340	.429	.472
2024	102	82	21	16	8	0	1	22	15	7	.256	.373	.390
2025	115	94	33	16	10	0	2	33	24	18	.351	.461	.521
2026	134	93	47	32	11	0	6	50	34	28	.505	.642	.817
Career	415	322	119	72	34	1	9	116	87	61	.370	.493	.565

 

Although effective during the first seven weeks of the season, Garbooshian’s home run power did not show up until the end of the season. He did not hit the first of his six home runs until May 19 in a regular-season win over New Egypt after his team had been eliminated from the Shore Conference Tournament three days earlier. The home run still carried meaning for Garbooshian, who broke the career hits record at Brick Memorial with that one swing and jump-started a torrid finish to what was already a strong season for the Mustangs shortstop.

That record-setting home run was the start of a 10-game hitting streak to end the season for Garbooshian, during which he hit .600 (18-for-30) with three doubles, six home runs, 18 runs scored, and 16 RBI. Six of those games were in the NJSIAA Tournament, in which Garbooshian made his mark while carrying Brick Memorial deeper than it had ever been in the state playoffs.

After homering at Howell in Brick Memorial’s last regular-season game, he clobbered a three-run homer in the fourth inning of his team’s 11-1 win over rival Brick Township in the Central Jersey Group III first round. Garbooshian actually struck out in each of his first two at-bats before delivering the fourth-inning shot and following that up with an RBI double in the fifth.

The next round vs. Hopewell Valley, Garbooshian drilled two more homers, including one to lead off the game in another 11-1 win for the Mustangs. In the sectional semifinals at Colts Neck, Garbooshian again started the game with a bang, homering to left field as the first batter of the game to set the course for a 3-2 Brick Memorial win over the second-seeded Cougars.

The solo home run at Colts Neck would be Garbooshian’s last home run of the tournament, but Garbooshian turned the growing fear from opposing pitchers into base-runners for his teammates farther down in the lineup. He led off the Central Jersey Group III final at Northern Burlington with a first-pitch single, then reached base on two walks (one intentional) and was hit by a pitch the rest of the way, and scored two runs in a landmark, 7-0 win for Brick Memorial that clinched the program its first ever NJSIAA sectional championship.

After reaching all four times in the sectional final, Garbooshian again went a perfect 2-for-2 with a double and two walks in the Group III semifinal vs. Delsea and left-handed ace Kyle Harrison, giving him eight straight state-tournament plate appearances successfully reaching base. Heading into his final at-bat of the game, however, Brick Memorial trailed, 1-0, with two out and the tying run planted at first base. Junior Will Montanye created an opportunity by stealing second base, but the trade-off was Garbooshian taking strike two to fall behind in the count, 1-2, against one of the tournament’s hottest pitchers and with the season on the line.

On the 1-2 offering, Garbooshian ripped a ground ball off the glove of diving shortstop Ryan Looby and into shallow left field, chasing Montanye home with the game-tying run and saving Brick Memorial’s season. The Mustangs completed the comeback when Garbooshian stole second base and scored on classmate Brody Moore’s RBI single into right field, sealing a 2-1 win over the Crusaders and sending Brick Memorial to the Group III championship game for the first time.

Brick Memorial ran into a buzz saw in the Group III final and came up one win shy of a state championship in a 5-0 loss to Old Tappan and 12-0 ace Selden Kolkebeck. Garbooshian struck out in each of his first two at-bats, facing exclusively sliders, then hammered a fastball back through the middle in his final at-bat for the 119th hit of his varsity career.

The 119 hits, 116 runs scored, 34 doubles, 72 walks, and 61 stolen bases by Garbooshian are new career records at Brick Memorial, and his 47 hits, 50 runs scored, 32 walks, and 28 stolen bases are new single-season standards for the program. Garbooshian also graduates as Brick Memorial’s all-time leader in at-bats and games played, and the 81 wins he was part of are more than any player in the Mustangs’ program’s history.

The early part of the season helped Garbooshian’s case as well, including his performance in Brick Memorial’s run to the Ocean County Tournament championship (5-for-11, three doubles, five walks, six runs, five RBI, four stolen bases). To cap that OCT title run, he delivered a key two-run single to extend the lead to 3-0 in the top of the fifth inning of the Mustangs’ 15-1 rout of Toms River South in the championship game.

Garbooshian did not homer until late May but had eight doubles prior to that first homer on May 19. The groundwork was laid out for a Player of the Year season, and Garbooshian brought it home with his remarkable six-game run in the NJSIAA Tournament: 10-for-18 (.556), two doubles, four home runs, four walks, nine runs scored, nine RBI, and four stolen bases.

The career records and Player of the Year Award are a memorable finish to Garbooshian’s four-year high-school career as he prepares to continue his baseball journey at Rutgers, but nothing surpasses his role as a leader on the Brick Memorial teams that turned a jaded history into the most decorated program at the Shore over the past two seasons.

 

Matt Manley’s Player of the Year Ballot

1. Tyler Garbooshian, Sr., SS, Brick Memorial

2. Dan Lubach, Sr., C, Point Pleasant Beach

3. Brody Moore, Sr., LHP/CF, Brick Memorial

4. Tommy Conroy, Sr., CF/LHP, Point Pleasant Beach

5. Dan Golembiewski, Sr., 1B, Brick Memorial

6. Jack Vallillo, Sr., RHP/2B, Holmdel

7. Jaden Geremia, Sr., LF, Toms River South

8. Jayden Matejicka, Sr., CF, Christian Brothers Academy

9. Ricky Lopez, Jr., SS, Ranney

10. Luke Lonczak, Jr., CF, Red Bank Catholic