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Hell of a Comeback: Shore Boys Basketball Rallies to Clinch Division Title

Matt Manley|January 29, 2026|Last Updated January 29, 2026

HIGHLANDS — Championship opportunities don’t come every year for the Shore Regional boys basketball team, but when they have, coach Erik Mazur’s team has been opportunistic. On Wednesday at Henry Hudson, that opportunity was in jeopardy if the the Blue Devils could not find an answer to stop host Henry Hudson and the Shore Conference’s leading scorer for the final 12-plus minutes of the game.

It took 20-plus-point performances from senior twins Andrew and Ryan Barham, a defensive turnaround against Henry Hudson junior forward JoJo Newell, and some last second heroics by junior fill-in starter Kedo Sayson for Shore to complete a come-from-behind, 70-67, win over the Admirals in overtime. The win clinches Shore no worse than a tie for its second Shore Conference division championship in three years, this time as a member of Class C North.

“Any time you can put a number up on your banner in the gym, it’s a great accomplishment,” said Mazur, currently in his eighth season as the Shore head coach after serving as an assistant for the Blue Devils for the prior four seasons. “In my time at Shore, we have been lucky enough to win a couple division titles. When you look up at the banner, there are not a ton. It was a couple years ago and then in 2015, when we won the (NJSIAA Central Group I) section. Before that, it’s 2007 and then the nineties, so any time we can get in this position, it’s fun.”

“It’s a great feeling,” Ryan Barham said. “This is a group of guys that we have been playing together for a long time. We had two very good classes ahead of us and we were behind them, so to watch those guys accomplish what they did and now to be seniors and to win our division is a big moment for us.”

Andrew Barham scored 23 points while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out four assists to lead Shore, while twin brother Ryan poured in 16 of his 22 points after halftime to go with six rebounds. Ryan Barham hit a three-pointer to tie the game, 54-54, with 1:20 left in the fourth quarter and Andrew converted a three-point play that gave Shore a 59-58 lead early in overtime — Shore’s first lead since 15-14 in the first quarter.

“They complement each other really well,” Mazur said of the Barham twins — one of whom is left-handed (Ryan) and the other (Andrew) right-handed. “Andrew has turned into more of a slash attacker. They play really well off one another. We have tried to run more two-man game with them, but that was a little bit tougher today because it was a lot of big-on-big tonight with their (Henry Hudson’s) size. But they are very in-sync, obviously.”

Henry Hudson grew its lead to 16 by the middle of the third quarter, at which point Shore came alive with a 15-4 run that turned a 44-28 deficit to a 48-43 Admirals lead heading into the fourth quarter.

“Our defense came alive in that third quarter,” Andrew Barham said. “Our offense just rolls off that and we can just ride that momentum.”

“We were just stagnant on offense,” Mazur said. “We were running a lot of five-out. We adjusted some things and started running actions to get specific guys shots, which got Ryan a couple good looks from three. That’s all it takes sometimes: you hit a couple threes, momentum shifts and this was such a momentum-driven game. We executed a few possession, we made shots and then we started getting stops.”

After Ryan Barham tied the game at 54, Newell drew a foul on the other end and hit a pair of go-ahead free throws with 1:11 left to make it 56-54. Shore bled the clock down to under 10 seconds and out of a timeout, Sayson — starting in place of flu-stricken junior Maddox Paulin — drove the ball into the lane and put up a difficult, over-the-shoulder shot that dropped to tie the game.

Shore shot 10-for-12 from the free-throw line in overtime, with one of the misses coming on a violation by Henry Hudson that gave Ryan Barham another attempt, which he made to give Shore a 61-60 lead.

“One thing with Ryan’s game is he is starting to get to the rim more,” Mazur said. “That leads to easier scoring chances and also gives him a chance to go to the free-throw line more, where he is a good shooter. He’s worked really hard to become a multi-tool kid.”

Henry Hudson had a chance to tie the game when senior Billy Quinn was fouled with 1.3 seconds left on a three-point attempt with his team down, 69-66, but he missed the first attempt, made the second and was unable to hit the rim on his final attempt, which he intended to miss in order to give his team a chance at the offensive rebound.

“Over the course of the season, we have had some tough losses,” said Andrew Barham, referencing competitive losses to both Red Bank Regional and Monmouth Regional amid its 11-4 start to the season. “I feel like we have been learning and growing from those experiences and that showed tonight in the way we were able to stay together and find a way, even when things weren’t really going our way.”

Newell powered Henry Hudson with 33 points, 16 rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks, which added to his standing as the Shore Conference’s scoring leader this season. Newell joined the 1,000-point club last week and now has 414 for the season for an average of 25.9 per game.

“The Newell kid is fantastic,” Mazur said. “He’s such a good, big kid. He’s athletic. We did a much better job in the second half rebounding the ball, getting stops and executing on offense and that maybe took them out of their rhythm.”

“We just had to focus on boxing out in the second half and trying to take him out of the play,” Ryan Barham said. “Just make it harder for him to get the ball and make them rely on their other guys, who aren’t leading the Shore Conference in scoring.”

Senior Finn Watson also contributed 14 points for Shore and Sayson finished with five points and three assists while filling in for Paulin. Sayson also hit 3-of-4 free-throw attempts in the final 30 seconds of overtime, with his only miss coming on the second of two attempts with 0.9 seconds remaining and Shore already ahead, 70-67.

“His time has increased the last couple of game,” Mazur said of Sayson. “He had some injuries early in the season and even tonight, he was cramping up a bit. But he has just been battling and giving us good minutes when we have needed them. He is a clutch kid.”

Quinn poured in 18 points and junior Masio Tucker chipped in 11 points, eight rebounds and three assists for Henry Hudson.

“We knew they were tough inside with Newell and Tucker and (Blakely) Smith and Quinn can both shoot the ball,” Mazur said. “Where they really kill teams is offensive-rebound kickouts. We lucked out early because it was a lot of offensive-rebound putbacks instead of the threes.”

Shore can clinch the outright Class C North championship by beating winless Asbury Park on Friday, which would mark Shore’s first outright division championship since 2007.

“Every team in New Jersey and probably the country has their sit-down goals before the season,” Mazur said. “You want to win your Christmas Tournament and the next thing is you want to win your division. For us to be able to get it done — we’ve still got two more games, so nothing is official-official — but to be a step closer by beating this team is great. I’ve got a lot of respect for their team. Brian (Kelly) is a great coach and his kids play hard for him. He has done a great job the last couple years with the program here. For us to come on the road and be done by as many as we were, it’s one of those gut-check moments that can really define a team and even define a season.”

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