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Green in the Bank: RBC Wins Battle of Red Bank to Open Season

Matt Manley|December 13, 2025|Last Updated December 13, 2025

LITTLE SILVER — A sub-standard shooting night would likely have doomed the Red Bank Catholic boys basketball team during the 2024-25 season and for three-plus quarters of the Caseys’ 2025-26 season-opener at Red Bank Regional Friday night, it looked like that would be their downfall in the first game of the new season.

A new season, however, means a new team and the Caseys displayed a defensive edge that kept them in the game against a motivated Bucs team and finally buried the dagger on the offensive end to get the season started on a winning note.

RBC held Red Bank to three points and zero field goals over the final seven minutes and senior Gavin Biasi hit the tie-breaking three-pointer with two minutes left to lift the Caseys — ranked No. 10 in the Shore Sports Insider Preseason Top 10 — to a 50-44, season-opening win over the rival Bucs in a back-and-forth battle between the two crosstown rivals.

“We have been more offensive-minded the last couple of years, but now, we’re definitely more defensive-minded,” Red Bank Catholic coach Tyler Schmelz said. “Our better players are defense-first players. In past years, they were offense-first players, so we wanted the games to be higher-scoring. Now, it’s going to be a little more defensive-minded. I think we’ll score some points this year, but we’re a big team, so I think we’ll be able to defend every night.”

Biasi finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three assists and senior James Hankowski scored seven of his 15 points during a three-minute spurt in the fourth quarter to lead Red Bank Catholic. The Caseys trailed by as many as eight points in the first half after enduring a stretch of over seven minutes without a point. Red Bank turned a 7-3 deficit midway through the first quarter into a 15-7 lead with a 12-0 run, but the Caseys clawed back and took the lead, 23-21, on a pair of free throws by Biasi early in the third.

“We could have scrimmaged eight times and not seen a defense like that. That was a confusing defense for opening night,” Schmelz said of Red Bank’s zone look to open the game. “Everyone else is going to see that on film, but they didn’t play that in the scrimmages we saw, so they threw that at us, it was confusing, it took us a while to get used to it and it was definitely a challenge.

“There were open guys and we weren’t seeing them. I thought we started to see them better in the second half, but we just didn’t shoot that great. Then we made a couple key ones.”

Red Bank junior Justin Valentino scored a game-high 16 points to go with six rebounds and three steals and hit a contested three-pointer in the final seconds of the third quarter to send the Bucs to the fourth with a 37-36 lead. He opened the fourth with a jumper and senior Josiah Johnson scored on a drive to the basket as he was fouled to stretch the Red Bank lead to 41-36 with exactly seven minutes to go in the game.

RBC responded with a layup by Hankowsi off a steal by junior Ryder Ciorciari, followed by a Hankowski three to tie the game. Bennett Lopez hit a pair of free throws to put Red Bank back on top before Hankowski made it seven straight for RBC with a baseline floater to even the game, 43-43.

“I know I’m a shooter,” Hankowski said. “I’m going to just get to my spot and I’m going to keep shooting every chance I get. All my teammates know that I’m going to let it fly.”

“We tell our guys, ‘If you’re open, knock it down,” Schmelz said. “‘Shoot with confidence.’ Gavin does that. He wasn’t second-guessing himself. He was knocking it down. It was a good shot and a smart play.”

On the tie-breaking possession, Biasi missed a three-pointer from the wing and after an offensive rebound, junior Tyler Hager found Biasi again in nearly the same spot, where the junior fired up his second made three of the game. RBC held Red Bank to one free throw the rest of the way and went 4-for-6 at the line to close it out.

“I didn’t shoot good this game, but I knew to keep my head and not to let any outside noise get to me,” Biasi said. “They (the Red Bank student section) we all talking to me, but I knew in the end, they were going to start going in and I was going to hit my free throws.”

Lopez finished with 13 points, five rebounds and three steals for Red Bank. Ciorciari added nine points, four rebounds and three assists for RBC, while Hager — a transfer from St. Rose — led the defensive effort with six rebounds, three steals and three blocks to go with his three points.

Hager’s presence on Friday did not jump out as far as his scoring, as the 6-foot-7 junior shot 1-for-3 from the floor and 1-for-2 from the free-throw line. His one basket, however, was a steal and dunk that cut Red Bank’s lead to 30-28 in the middle of an 8-0 run that culminated with a go-ahead corner three-pointer by senior Jake Frankel that made it 31-30.

“Every kid contributes to the energy in practice and Tyler has just upped the ante,” Schmelz said. “We have been practicing really hard the last two weeks. This is also a new role for him and I think he is excited. He was a role player on a really good team and now he is a lead player. Usually, the good high-school players are offensive-minded, but he is definitely a defense-first, pass-first player, which is fun.”

Hager was a bench contributor for St. Rose’s 2024-25 Shore Conference Tournament championship team and NJSIAA Non-Public B runner-up and played comfortably within RBC’s scheme on Friday despite a quiet statistical performance – due, in part, to two fouls he picked up by the midway point of the first quarter. He also showed his ability to pass out of the post, setting up several open looks from the three-point arc, including Biasi’s game-winner.

“He wasn’t thinking he was going to play basketball because he came (to RBC) to play baseball,” Biasi said. “So we had to get him to play and from the first practice, we saw how he always finds the open shooter, so that’s definitely going to be part of our game plan, because we’re a good shooting team.”

Adding Hager is just part of RBC’s defensive transformation from a year ago, when the Caseys allowed an average of 60 points per game and held opponents to 44 points or fewer just twice last season. Players like Biasi, Hankowski, Ciorciari, seniors Ryan Saxton and Nolan Davis and sophomore Asher Cummins have all added considerable strength and quickness over the offseason that showed on the defensive end of the floor Friday.

“We were known as more of an offensive team last year, but getting Tyler and the bigs, we have definitely stepped up our defense,” Hankowski said. “That’s all we practice most days.”

“We have been working on close-outs the whole year and then when Tyler (Hager) came in, it’s like no one can drive on him,” Biasi said. “It makes it easier for us to press out on the perimeter, get our hands on more steals, create some turnovers.”

Red Bank played its first game under coach Ben DiBiase, who left his longtime post at Freehold Boro to take over the Bucs this season. Valentino is the lone returning starter from last year’s team, which eclipsed 20 wins and won a Shore Conference division championship for a second straight season. Red Bank had won each of the last two meetings vs. RBC by a combined total of 11 points, with RBC’s last head-to-head win over Red Bank coming in January of 2024.

“We knew they were going to come out hot, press up on us,” Biasi said. “We knew they were going to be aggressive and try to get in our heads. We kept our mentality right, kept our composure.

“Opening night, same town. We knew we had to run the Bank, so we had to defend that.”

 

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