Bringing it Back Home: CBA Ends 16-Year Shore Conference Title Drought

WEST LONG BRANCH — Connor Andree is the younger brother of the all-time leading scorer of the storied Christian Brothers Academy basketball program and plays for a head coach who won four Shore Conference Tournament championships and an NJSIAA state championship during his four years as a player at CBA.

If those were the standards to live up to, Andree’s senior season would have been over before it started.

Passing his brother, Pat, in scoring was a statistical impossibility coming into his senior season, but he had a chance to do what Pat Andree and every player from the last 12 graduating classes could not do: win a conference championship at CBA.

It might not be four championships in four years, like first-year CBA coach Brian Lynch won in his four years at CBA, but what Andree and his fellow seniors did on Friday at Monmouth University’s OceanFirst Bank Arena was historic in its own right.

Andree and sophomore Izayah Cooper ignited a red-hot start to the game for CBA and the top-seeded Colts finished off a wire-to-wire, 58-37 win over No. 3 Red Bank Catholic that clinches CBA its first Shore Conference Tournament championship since 2010.

“I love having a trophy to show for it,” Andree said. “We came in with a different mindset this year. We knew were going to be the best team in the Shore. Last year, we were a bit of an underdog, so we had to work our way up. This year, we just had to stay at the top.”

“This was the number one goal on our list when we sat down together as a team before Philly Live,” Lynch said. “We asked them, ‘What’s the goal here?’ They said to win a Shore Conference championship. To be able to come here and do that feels really special. CBA has won a bunch of times, but it’s been a while, so this is nice.”

Since winning its first conference title in basketball in 1984, CBA had not gone more than four seasons without winning a title up between 1984 and 2014. In the years since, CBA has made it to four Shore Conference Tournament finals before Friday’s edition and went 0-4.

Not only did Connor Andree endure one of those four losses last year, when a St. Rose team coached by Lynch beat the Colts, 45-36; Pat Andree played in three straight championship games as a sophomore, junior and senior at CBA and lost all three.

“I watched my brother lose a couple — I’ve watched all my brothers lose a couple,” Andree said. “It’s great for me personally and for the team because we have been working so hard all year. The first goal that we set out was win a Shore Conference championship. I’m so proud of this team. I always wanted to win one. Last year, we had some heartbreak, but with Coach Lynch coming in, we knew we were going to have a great chance.”

“When we sat down with Connor before the season, I said to him, ‘I know your brother was a high-major, Division I player and he scored two thousand points here, but I think you have a chance to be a champion here.’ He said, ‘That’s exactly what I intend to do.’ If you look at the way he played this year, wow. You talk about an incredible high-school player. If that kid doesn’t play in college, I think that’s a shame. He is such a good high-school player. He’s a winner and he deserved this one.”

Connor Andree from Izayah Cooper to end the 3rd. CBA leads RBC 47-26. pic.twitter.com/W6GpN8XK6P

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 21, 2026

In his second trip to the championship game, Andree carried the weight of those four straight losses in the final more than any person alive and led a team that included three transfers from last year’s championship team at St. Rose, plus the coaching staff of that Purple Roses team that beat CBA. Andree and his CBA teammates supplied the motivation, while the three transfers and the championship coaching staff provided the know-how.

“That was definitely one of the things I wanted to get,” Cooper said. “These seniors who are going to be leaving and haven’t won anything yet, I definitely wanted to win for them. And for myself, last year was a great experience, but I wasn’t really a big part of it, so I wanted to make more of an impact. Getting this for the seniors was big.”

End of 1: CBA 17, RBC 3. Izayah Cooper with 7 points in 3-3 shooting. pic.twitter.com/UDkTCOtKas

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 21, 2026

“We all love each other,” Andree said. “We’re friends off the court, so they wanted wanted to play for the seniors who were here and we all wanted to play for each other.”

“We wanted them to feel like what it’s like to win a championship, because it’s so hard to do,” Lynch said. “You start working in June and it’s an eight-month journey.”

Facing an RBC team playing in the program’s first ever championship game, CBA leaned on two experienced players: a sophomore point guard who had a small part in St. Rose’s 2025 victory and Andree, a key performer for the losing team in that same game. Cooper and Andree combined for CBA’s first 11 points and after senior Charlie Messano hit two free throws, the Colts were ahead 13-0 and would not lead by fewer than 12 the rest of the way.

“Izayah was a magician out there,” Lynch said. “I thought he was fantastic from the start. He was the best player on the floor tonight.”

Cooper scored 11 of his 15 points in the first half and dished out seven assists, while Andree posted 14 points and six rebounds in his ultimate redemption game. Messano — one of four players who wore a CBA uniform in both the 2025 and 2026 finals — added eight points and three steals, while fellow senior Charlie Marcoullier hit a pair of three-pointers for six points in the victory.

Andree, Messano, Marcoullier and junior David Buley are the four CBA players to play in each of the last two championship games for CBA. Buley led CBA with 18 points and five rebounds in the Colts’ semifinal win over Marlboro and finished with three points Friday, with his lone field goal coming on a two-hand dunk off a feed from Cooper.

Charlie Marcoullier from way downtown to give CBA a 30-11 lead with 2:20 left in the half. pic.twitter.com/mkMPtKkgFE

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 21, 2026

David Buley from Izayah Cooper for the dunk. CBA up 43-20 in RBC 2:30 left in the 3rd. pic.twitter.com/hCacBxIWAS

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 21, 2026

“I had an opportunity to coach a lot of these (CBA) guys when I first came back from Europe, so I knew a few of them even before I took the St. Rose job,” Lynch said. “Coming back (to CBA), I know that they were really hungry to have an opportunity to do this, which is why they made it their first goal. We didn’t care about rankings, about records, or anything like that. We wanted to win a Shore Conference Tournament, so I knew right away what their objective was. Going into this season, watching them grow and prepare for this moment, then to watch them go out and perform the way they did from the very start, it’s a credit to those seniors.”

Cooper, meanwhile, was one of three St. Rose transfers who, along with their head coach, help change CBA’s championship fortunes. Junior Avery Lynch, the nephew of Brian Lynch, pitched in with nine points and five rebounds in his second straight year as a starter in the SCT final, while junior Oymere Rene also got the starting nod for CBA after coming off the bench for St. Rose a year ago.

“It was definitely awkward on the first day,” Cooper said. “Seeing those guys after we literally just beat them. Eventually, we bonded and we got it done.”

While Friday’s margin of victory was the smallest of any of CBA’s SCT victories, it was the best first quarter the Colts have played during the tournament. CBA did not lead by more than five points at the end of the first quarter in any of its wins over Point Pleasant Boro, Holmdel or Marlboro and actually trailed Holmdel by a point in the quarterfinals. On Friday, the Colts held RBC scoreless for the first 2:53 of the game and led 17-3 by the end of the quarter.

“We finally got off to a hot start,” Andree said. “It felt great to get a lead early because we knew if we didn’t, they would start slowing possessions down, holding the ball for a minute at a time and we didn’t want to have that happen.

“It’s been the same mindset every game: win, win win. We want to win and we go into every game with the same mindset. I think the difference was that we have played in a lot of games like this. We have played some of the best teams in the state, so we had that advantage coming in.”

CBA’s past experience with this particular RBC team helped prepare them for the start of the game. On Jan. 17, Red Bank Catholic went into CBA’s gym and backed the Colts against the ropes before CBA rallied from a 13-point deficit with 9:30 left to force overtime and ultimately win, 69-65.

“I think it helped us that the last game was close,” Andree said. “It lit a fire. If we had won by twenty the first time, we wouldn’t have came in with the same mindset.”

“That was a blessing in disguise, because there was zero lack of respect,” Lynch said. “We were really aware what they were capable of. From the very start, we wanted to try to establish ourselves physically, and I thought our guys did. Chuck (Messano) and Connor’s physicality defensively was just tremendous and then Oymere did a good job as well.”

In that January game, Red Bank Catholic’s trio of junior Tyler Hager (17 points), senior Ryan Saxton (15) and senior James Hankowski combined for 44 of RBC’s 65 points. Friday night at Monmouth University, the trio combined for just nine points, with CBA holding Hankowski — RBC’s leading scorer entering the game — without a point.

Junior Gavin Biasi led Red Bank Catholic with 10 points while classmate Ryder Ciorciari added nine in the loss.

“That was our game plan,” Andree said. “Don’t let Hankowski shoot. Get up on Biasi and have me pressure Hager so I could get a count on him. That was our game plan going in and we executed it perfectly.”

“We watched film of that game and we saw we were not playing physical at all,” Cooper said of the first match-up with RBC. “We were not pressuring their guards. We were not pressuring Tyler. We were just letting him sit up top, so that’s what we changed. We pressured Tyler up top and we wanted to pressure their guards, because their guards aren’t as good under pressure and they made a lot of turnovers, which became easy buckets.”

Friday’s championship victory is a historic one for Brian Lynch, who became the first Shore Conference coach to win championships in back-to-back years at different schools. After winning four Shore titles and a state championship as a player, Lynch now has won three Shore Conference Tournament championships in five years as a high-school head coach. He led St. Rose to the 2024 and 2025 SCT championships before leaving the Belmar school to return to his alma mater for the 2025-26 season.

Lynch has experienced far more success than failure between his playing career and his coaching career in the high-school game, but he has felt the sting of losing on occasion. St. Rose lost as a No. 2 seed in stunning fashion in the 2023 semifinals, when No. 11 Ranney erased a 13-point deficit in the final 2:30 of the fourth quarter to knock off the Purple Roses in overtime. St. Rose responded by winning the NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public B title later that season and went 29-2 the following year, finishing No. 1 in the state.

Last year, St. Rose won the boys Shore Conference Tournament championship, but it came after the St. Rose girls — led by Lynch’s daughter, Jada — lost to Red Bank Catholic in heart-breaking fashion in the first game of the championship double-header.

“It was agonizing to see them lose at the end like that right before we went on,” Lynch said of the St. Rose girls’ loss in 2025. “When we won, I went home to a really sad daughter, so I couldn’t enjoy the moment like I wanted to because I love her so much and I wanted to be there for her. Although it did feel good to win, I felt like I went through that with her. This year, it was just us at CBA, so it is comparable to that first year at St. Rose.”

With Friday’s win, CBA made a clear statement that it is back at the top of the Shore Conference. The Colts have been contenders for the past decade-and-a-half, but the 17th SCT championship in program history had slipped through its grasp in each season since the last one in 2010.

“I really appreciate being a part of history with these guys,” Cooper said. “I actually did not know that they were on that big of a drought, because they are CBA and they are always really good. They were always good and always in it: the semifinals, the quarterfinals, the finals a couple times. But I didn’t know that they hadn’t won in that long and that made me want to win even more.”

Now, with players like Cooper, Lynch and Renee winning championships in all of their high-school seasons so far, a story like Andree’s will likely be a singular one for CBA. Few players have known the success that Lynch has and few others have known the unrelenting heartbreak of losing three straight championship games, as Pat Andree did.

Connor Andree is the rare player at CBA to know both, and the results of the upcoming NJSIAA Tournament notwithstanding, he will leave CBA with the taste of victory.