Crimson Blackout: Three-Minute Scoring Outage Caps Another Historic Win for Wall

MIDDLETOWN — Neither head coach Bob Klatt nor anyone on his Wall boys basketball team expected the Manasquan team they played in Saturday’s Shore Conference Tournament quarterfinal game at Middletown South High School to look anything like the Manasquan team they manhandled in December at the Kevin Williams Christmas Classic in Toms River.

The nearly 14 minutes that Wall held Manasquan scoreless to start that December game will go down as the stuff of legend within the Crimson Knights program, and the only thing sweeter than holding their rivals without a point in the first 13-plus minutes of a game in December is what they did Saturday: held the Warriors without a point over the final three-plus minutes to earn a long-awaited trip to the SCT semifinals.

Manasquan closed the 20-point gap between the teams in December and pulled itself within one score of the second-seeded Crimson Knights on Saturday, but Wall’s defense answered the bell to survive a scoreless final three minutes and advance with a 41-39 victory over the No. 7 Warriors.

“We knew it was going to be a war,” said Klatt, whose team handled Manasquan, 40-20, in December. “The last time we played them, we were playing well and they were struggling. Right now, they are pretty good. So we knew it was going to be a war today.”

Wall moves on to the SCT semifinals for the first time in five decades and is one win away from its first SCT championship appearance since 1974.

No player in Saturday’s game scored more than 10 points, with senior Jake DeBrito leading Wall with 10 points to go with his contributions in the shutdown defensive effort. Both teams went scoreless over the final three-plus minutes over just four possessions, the last two of which lasted a combined 20 seconds.

“We’ve been saying all year it’s about our defense,” Klatt said. “That’s what it came down to today. It was a battle. They (Manasquan) got their pace, a halfcourt game and we won it out on the defensive end. Our defense is our strength and on offense, we couldn’t get going, which is a credit to Manasquan.”

“There is a lot of preparation that goes in mentally to be able to defend in those situations,” DeBrito said. “We knew the game was on the line and we were going to have to defend. That’s how we have had success all year. We felt like we kind of started to get away from it to try to have some offensive juggernaut type of games, but this game, we knew we had to come play defense too. We all bought into that game plan.”

Manasquan had a chance to tie the game or take the lead with a three, but Wall forced a turnover with 20 seconds left. The Crimson Knights drained the clock to under six seconds, but turned the ball over on an inbound play, giving Manasquan the ball back with 4.9 seconds left.

“That last four seconds felt like an hour,” Wall senior point guard Liam Killea said. “It took us forever to get out of that end, but we weren’t going to let up until it was over.”

Manasquan attempted to advance the ball, but passed its inbound pass into the backcourt before calling timeout, leaving the Warriors three-quarters of the court to cover with 4.1 seconds left. Wall gave a foul with 3.2 seconds left and on the final attempt, sophomore Kennedy Larned’s desperation heave missed the mark.

DeBrito’s key sequence in the game came at the end of the first half, which he closed by hitting a three-pointer, then following up a miss with an acrobatic tip-in just before the halftime buzzer. The putback gave him eight points at halftime and his team a 23-22 lead on Manasquan at the break.

Jake DeBrito closes the half with a 3 and this acrobatic putback to give Wall a 23-22 lead on Manasquan at halftime. DeBrito leads Wall with 8 points and 3 rebounds. Jack O’Reilly with 10 points and 7 rebounds for Squan. pic.twitter.com/sfFYTCFo40

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 14, 2026

“Our coaches were very upset we weren’t patient enough to get a layup on that (baseline out-of-bounds) play,” Klatt said. “Then, we were joking at half saying, ‘Well, it wouldn’t have been as thrilling.’ That was a thrilling play. That was huge. Jake has been coming up like that all year. He bangs that three, comes up as a defensive stopper when we need him. That play is just Jake being Jake.”

“That’s just kind of what I do,” DeBrito said. “We need a big moment and an energizer, that’s my job. ‘Battery’ has been my nickname since sophomore year and that gets us going. I knew we needed to answer or it was going to get ugly and I was feeling good. I thought I was open, I didn’t get it, I stayed with it and then it was just effort. That’s what we knew this game was going to come down to.”

Killea and Dan Hennessy each added seven points and senior Brian McKenna scored all six of his points in the second half. Manasquan cut a 33-24 deficit late in the third to 35-34 by its second possession of the fourth, but Wall answered with a putback by junior Navin Tu, two free throws by Hennessy, and a runner by McKenna — the last of which gave Wall a 41-36 lead.

“We went on that run to get the lead off our defense: getting one stop, get out and run the floor,” Klatt said. “But I had no problem with us holding the ball in those situations in the last two minutes. Some shot selection is what we’re going to talk about, but I don’t have a problem with us holding the ball.”

In addition to providing seven points, Killea helped navigate Wall through those final three minutes while protecting the ball for a possession that lasted more than 90 seconds.

“Liam has gone under the radar,” DeBrito said. “Brian does the scoring and he’s been really good at that, but Liam gets everyone going. He has the ball in his hands and is really the foundation of us five out on the court. I think people forget because it doesn’t always show up on the stat sheet, but I think he is one of the best around.”

Senior Jack O’Reilly and sophomore Luke Winn each scored 10 points lead Manasquan, with O’Reilly also grabbing 10 rebounds and Winn scoring seven of his points in the second half. Sophomore Sean Bilodeau also pitched in eight points for Manasquan, which fell short of reaching the SCT semifinals for the first time since 2018. Saturday marked the 15th straight year Manasquan reached the final eight of the Shore Conference postseason, which includes winning the modified tournament during the COVID-shortened 2021 season.

McKenna entered Saturday averaging 17 points per game, but went scoreless until hitting a pair of free throws with 4:17 left in the third quarter. Despite a quiet day from its top scorer, Wall did not give back the lead after DeBrito’s buzzer-beating tip-in. The Crimson Knights string together an 11-0 run that turned their 22-18 deficit heading into the final minute of the half into a 29-22 lead with 4:57 left in the third.

“We had Brian in the dead zone — basically just out of the way since they were trying to take him away,” Killea said. “Him setting screens helped us a lot and got other people open, so he definitely did his job, no matter what his points were.”

Brian McKenna makes his 1st FG on a putback to give Wall its largest lead before Sean Bilodeau answers with a 3. 33-27 Wall with 3:06 left in the 3rd. pic.twitter.com/2h1JTyfznc

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 14, 2026

“Brian McKenna is a big part of what we do, but you better worry about the other four guys on the floor, because they all work hard and they all put the time in to be able to make big plays,” Klatt said. “That goes for the guys coming off the bench too. I thought Navin and Donovan (Buist) gave us great minutes.”

Saturday marked Wall’s second straight win over a team it defeated in December and on Wednesday at Brookdale, it will face another. After beating Ocean and Manasquan to reach the semifinal round, Wall will look to take down No. 3 Red Bank Catholic for a second straight time to punch its ticket to Monmouth University for the Crimson Knights’ first championship appearance in 52 years. Wall beat RBC, 44-34, in the first round of the Kevin Williams Classic and is now a combined 5-0 against the other two teams it beat in that tournament: Manasquan (2-0) and Freehold Township (3-0).

“We like the rivalry,” Killea said. “We like playing good teams and we like playing in big games, so we were definitely looking forward to this tournament and this game.”