Defending the Nest: ACI/Robin’s Nest Captures Second Straight JSBL Title

MANASQUAN — Samier Kinsler has made himself into one of the best all-around guards in the Jersey Shore Basketball League thanks to the chip on his shoulder that has pushed him to compete against players with more profound recruiting profiles.

While his opponents get the edge, for his teammates on ACI/Robin’s Nest, it’s all love.

“The secret is us,” Kinsler said. “It’s family. It’s love. Genuine love is the reason why we’re back-to-back champions. We love each other, so I don’t care if I have zero points and my teammate doesn’t care either. We are here to win a game, so whatever it takes to win, that’s what matters to us.”

On Thursday night at Manasquan High School, ACI/Robin’s Nest showed both its ruthlessness toward the opponent—Sterns Trailer—and the tight bond formed within its own team while rolling to a 99-84 victory that claimed the team’s second straight JSBL championship.

One year ago, ACI/Robin’s Nest won its first JSBL championship as a No. 3 seed in the playoffs and conquered the first again this summer as a No. 4 seed.

Former Neptune star and 6-foot-7 forward Jared Kimbrough capped his playoff Most Valuable Player performance with 28 points, 14 rebounds and two blocked shots, and Kinsler backed him up with 20 points and six rebounds to lead ACI on the scoring end of the floor.

After he helped close out Wednesday’s semifinal win over No. 1 seed County Line Auto Body by scoring 20 of his 24 points in the second half, Kimbrough did not need to ease his way into the game on Thursday. He dropped 16 of his game-high point total in the first half on 7-for-8 shooting, and the lone miss of the half was a missed lay-up that he rebounded and put back in with a dunk. In the second half, he flashed his range by burying the first two three-point attempts he took. In total, Kimbrough finished 12-for-17 from the floor.

“I knew I had to get myself going early,” Kimbrough said. “I heard the comments (about starting slow), so I had to come out and play with a chip on my shoulder to get myself going and get my team going. They found me in the open spots, so shoutout to them. They helped me go, and by helping me go, they helped themselves as well.”

Stern’s Trailer forward Rasheen Merlin was effective in scoring 24 points to go with nine rebounds, but Kimbrough bested both him and fellow Sterns’ big man Parker Dortch (12 points, 10 rebounds).

“They’re not as strong as they think they are,” said Kimbrough, who played professionally in Finland this past season. “I know they said I’m light, but no. I know people probably look at my frame and think, ‘He’s scrawny. Go at him.’ I’m tough. I’m in the weight room all the time. I go against stronger guys overseas. Compared to overseas, this is nothing. Let them sleep on me.”

Kinsler scored 16 of his points during a red-hot third quarter to help ACI open up their double-digit lead on Stern’s.

For the second straight game, ACI seized control and did not let it go. Behind Kimbrough’s near-perfect first half, the defending champions built a 48-35 lead by halftime, and when Sterns’ closed the gap to 51-48 in the first three minutes of the third quarter, ACI had an answer. Led by Kinsler’s shooting and slashing, ACI answered with a 22-10 run that extended the lead to 73-58 with two minutes left in the quarter. Kinsler capped the run by getting into the paint and laying off a pass for Kimbrough, who threw down a thunderous two-hand dunk, forcing Sterns Trailer to take a timeout in an attempt to stem the tide.

Offense was a byproduct of another suffocating defensive effort by ACI, one that limited the No. 2 team during the JSBL regular season to 84 points on 35 percent shooting from the field. In three playoff games, ACI held three of the top five teams from the JSBL regular season to an average of 87.3 points, with each round better than the one prior. After holding WCT Warriors to 91 points in round one, the two-time JSBL champions held No. 1 seed County Line to 84 points in County Line’s first loss of the season.

“We know most teams don’t really want to play defense,” Kimbrough said. “You have a few guys on each team that will play good defense. When I first got into this league, I was on a team that had all the talent in the world but we couldn’t play a lick of defense as a team. One-on-one, we could do do it, but as a team, no. On this team, that’s what the main focus is. Defense is going to get us the win”

Guard Dwaine Jones — a former teammate of Kimbrough at Neptune and of Kinsler at West Virginia State — added 12 points and six assists and Jagan Mosely also poured in 12 points to go with seven rebounds. Ibn Loyal was a third scorer in double-figures with 11 for ACI, which also got a combined 15 points courtesy of Tyreek Montgomery (eight), Jared White (five) and Micah Kerr (three).

While most of the 2025 ACI squad — led by the 2025 Playoff MVP Jones, Kimbrough and Kinsler — returned, Mosely was a perfect new addition for the lineup as a physical, athletic, 6-foot-3 guard with championship experience during his basketball career. Mosely, a native of Marlboro, was the star on St. Anthony’s 32-0 team that finished No. 1 in New Jersey and No. 3 nationally before he went on to play four seasons at Georgetown for Patrick Ewing.

“I can do a lot of things on the court and I have played a lot of different roles in my career, so seeing what they did last year, I didn’t want to be the guy to come in and say, ‘I need 20 shots,’” said Mosely, who was on the ACI/Robin’s Nest roster last summer but sat out all summer due to injury. “I wanted to do whatever Dwaine needed from me, whatever Jared, whatever Samier needed – that’s what I wanted to do: Make shots, play defense – it didn’t matter. I just wanted to help them win a championship.”

Former Florida Atlantic guard Jalen Gaffney led Sterns with 26 points and five assists, and Mason Jones chipped in 12 points and eight boards in the loss. Gaffney was on FAU’s Final Four team in 2023. That team was coached by newly-hired Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May, who led Michigan to the 2025-26 national championship.

Gaffney might have boasted the most noteworthy résumé on the floor for his place on that FAU team, but on Thursday night, the collective effort of the summer champs of the Jersey Shore won the evening.

“This is some of the best competition on the East Coast,” Kinsler said. “You have players from overseas, NBA players, Division I guards, so to play these types of guys and to win, especially coming from where I come from as a Division II kid, it means everything. That’s the reason I had the chip on my shoulder to win two. I always want to show I belong.”

“These top guys who get paid at these high levels – no disrespect to them – but I feel like I can play there too. So every time I get a chance to prove it, that’s what I’m out to do.”