Hodge, Lynch Spark St. Rose Boys Basketball in 1 vs. 2 Showdown

BELMAR — Even as the No. 1 team in the Shore Sports Insider Boys Basketball Top 10 and one of the top 10 teams in New Jersey, St. Rose is a squad still trying to nail down its identity one year after a thoroughly dominant 29-2 season that ended with the program’s first Shore Conference Tournament and NJSIAA Non-Public B championships.

Over the past five days, St. Rose was slated to play three of the top 12 teams in New Jersey, and even with one of those games canceled due to snow, the Purple Roses verified one aspect of their identity that translates from last season: they deliver on defense.

After holding a top-10 team in Montgomery to under 50 points in the Jimmy V Showcase at Central over the weekend, St. Rose slowed down the most locked-in scorer in the Shore Wednesday in a 61-48 win over No. 2 Manasquan.

“It’s never easy, this game,” St. Rose coach Brian Lynch said of playing Manasquan. “No matter what team we have had, it’s always been a brutal game to play. They are so physically tough. I just think they are one of the best-coached teams in the state.”

Just as he was when he sparked his team through a pair of slow stretches in Saturday’s 50-48 win over Montgomery, junior Jayden Hodge was the defensive star Wednesday against Manasquan at the McCann Athletic and Activities Center. In addition to his 16 points, five rebounds and five steals, he spent the majority of the game defending Manasquan sophomore guard Rey Weinseimer, who finished with 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting to go with six rebounds.

Entering play Wednesday night, Weinseimer was averaging 19.7 points per game and scored 18 points in Manasquan’s 50-45 loss to St. Rose on Dec. 16. In that early-season clash, Weinseimer scored 17 points through three quarters before Hodge switched over to guard him and held him to one in the final eight minutes.

“Having Jay with his length on Rey helped,” Lynch said. “Last game, we didn’t have that, so he could shoot over guys.”

Hodge’s effort did not totally shut Weinseimer down on Wednesday because during the first half, Weinseimer hit a pair of contested shots, got to the free-throw line and made a breakaway layup off a St. Rose turnover. Hodge, however, held him to just five shot attempts before halftime, and in the second half, Weinseimer shot 2-for-8. The five steals by Hodge accounted for better than a third of the 14 turnovers committed by Manasquan.

“It comes down to ‘What kind of shots is he hitting?'” Lynch said of Weinseimer. “In this case, he was hitting heavily-guarded, heavily-contested shots. We have a saying, ‘If you play tough defense, sometimes there is better offense.’ (The second quarter) was a situation where Jay did a great job defensively, but Rey just had better offense. If he is not getting open looks and he has got to work hard for his shots every possession, I’m fine with that.”

Sophomore Avery Lynch led St. Rose’s scoring effort with 17 points. Both Lynch and Hodge contributed to a three-point flurry that sent St. Rose to halftime with a 32-24 lead. The Purple Roses hit three-pointers in each of their final three first-half possessions, with Lynch, junior Tyler Cameron and Hodge hitting the trio.

“We were definitely not hitting as many shots as we would like to in the previous games that we were losing,” Avery Lynch said. “We just have to keep the intensity every time and eventually, the shots will start falling.”

“Avery has been working really hard,” Brian Lynch said about his nephew. “Outside of our practices, he has been putting extra work in because he has been disappointed in the way he has been shooting. He’s not your developed, little guard who is finished growing. He is kind of gangly and long, and I think he is still developing physically. He is not in a finished form, so I think it’s going to take time before he is a final product, but the extra work he has been putting in has been really nice to see and to have a nice game from him today is good to see because he has put a lot of work in and you always want to see that kind of work lead to good results.

“We needed him to step up. If he doesn’t step up, it might be 48-48 at the end of the game, so his offensive production was huge.”

Lynch and Hodge drained threes to open the second half, giving St. Rose five straight three-point makes on the way to shooting 6-for-14 from the game. On the other side of the floor, the Roses limited Manasquan to 1-for-13 shooting from beyond the arc, including 1-for-12 in the second half. Manasquan’s lone make was a corner three-pointer by senior Brandon Kunz with 57 seconds left in the game that ended a streak of 11 straight three-point misses.

“The whole game was about defense and trying to stop Rey,” Avery Lynch said. “He’s a great player, and also Griffin (Linstra) is very good. We had to bring the intensity every possession and there’s no shot clock here so we had to work every possession.

“It’s a lot of work, but we practice every day. We know our defensive principles, and if we follow them, we’ll be fine.”

With Lynch and Hodge combining for just over half of St. Rose’s scoring, Cameron and freshman Izayah Cooper provided all-around efforts in the win as well. Cameron scored seven points to go with his usual stingy defense, while Cooper contributed six points and six assists.

“We have been working a lot on building the identity on the defense and rebounding and being scrappy, but we have also been working a lot at becoming more efficient offensively and not putting too much of a load on just Jayden and Evan,” Bryan Lynch said. “The example tonight was Ty Cameron. Early in the game, he curled hard around a screen and then, after a re-screen, he took the ball hard to the rim. He took the ball hard to the rim on another screen and dished it off. He was looking to be more productive offensively, and that’s what we have been working on.”

Linstra reached a game-high 17 points to go with six rebounds and three assists in leading Manasquan. Sophomore Logan Cleveland also pitched in eight points and five rebounds.

Saturday’s game vs. Montgomery — which entered the Jimmy V Showcase on a 10-game winning streak and ranked No. 9 in the state — was to be the first of back-to-back games vs. top 10 teams in the state. Sunday’s scheduled matchup vs. No. 2 Bergen Catholic at Caldwell University was canceled due to snow, giving St. Rose a chance to recuperate ahead of Wednesday’s battle with Manasquan.

“I hate to admit it, but it helped,” Brian Lynch said of the cancelation of Sunday’s game vs. Bergen Catholic. “You saw today, we could go a little longer. We had more of a pep in our step. I hope that we can catch up a little bit for this stretch and that it was a blessing in disguise that we lost that game on Sunday, because we were dead after the Montgomery game.”

The wins over Montgomery and Manasquan are a boon to St. Rose’s power-point standing, which impacts both its place in the NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public B section, as well as the Shore Conference Tournament.

The Purple Roses have loaded up their schedule with out-of-state opponents, and while that has shortchanged them on power points, it has sharpened their edges when facing the likes of Gill St. Bernard, Montgomery and Manasquan. Saturday’s Mental Health for Athletes Showcase at Red Bank Regional represents another high-level New Jersey opponent, with Union Catholic making the trip to Little Silver to play St. Rose in a meeting between two teams that have won overall state titles within the last two years.

“We have played a lot of tough teams this season,” Avery Lynch said. “It gets us ready as far as confidence. Also, you’re dealing with those pressure games, playing bigger players, stronger players to get you ready for games like this.

“(Manasquan) is a good team. They are not as big as a team like the Patrick School, but I think they play even harder than the Patrick School. Coming into this gym, it’s so much fun. Playing in front of the Zoo (St. Rose student section). It’s not like their place where it’s their fans. It’s our fans so it feels like we have all the momentum.”