Metro Classic Preview: Two Years Later, Hodge, Adams Renew Rivalry

The last time Jayden Hodge and Darius Adams met in a high-school basketball setting, the two then-underclass standouts figured it was just the latest installment in what would be an ongoing Shore Conference rivalry between Hodge’s St. Rose team and Adams’s Manasquan squad through the end of the 2024-25 season.

Instead, Adams left New Jersey to sharpen his skills at La Lumiere in Indiana, while Hodge has remained a central figure in St. Rose’s ascension to the top of the Shore Conference – an ascension that started while Adams was still leading Manasquan but was completed after he transferred out of state.

On Saturday at Franklin High School in the final game of the Metro Classic, Hodge will get a chance to pay Adams back for the last time their two teams met – a regular-season win by Manasquan over St. Rose – and showcase the program growth that St. Rose has undertaken while Adams has been in Indiana for the past two years.

For Adams Saturday is a chance to help his former Manasquan teammates and put on a show for his home state in the process. It has already been a monumental season for Adams: he committed to the University of Connecticut in the fall and last week was selected to play in the McDonald’s All-American game.

Now in his second season at La Lumiere, Adams was a two-time All-Shore selection at Manasquan and the Shore Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore in 2022-23, when he led the Warriors to the NJSIAA Group II championship – Manasquan’s first and only overall state title.

In the year-and-a-half since Adams left, Manasquan has missed its former star, but has remained competitive nonetheless. They were one missed referee decision away from upsetting Camden and playing in a second straight Group II final a season ago and this year, the Warriors are 16-2 heading into play Tuesday. Manasquan’s only losses are to St. Rose, which has gone 4-0 against the Warriors since Adams left.

Currently, Manasquan is in position to be the No. 1 seed in the Shore Conference Tournament and the only team that will likely have the avenue to bump the Warriors from that perch is St. Rose. The Purple Roses likely will not catch Manasquan in power-point average – the determining factor in this year’s SCT seeding – but Purple Roses can get to second on the list and would then jump to No. 1 over Manasquan due to its two wins over the Warriors. The head-to-head caveat only applies when teams are seeded consecutively, so St. Rose will have to beat out the likes of Christian Brothers Academy, Red Bank Regional, Central Regional and Rumson-Fair Haven for the No. 2 spot in order to leapfrog Manasquan and that could very well require St. Rose to win all of its games this week.

Adams would love nothing more than to deliver his former team the No. 1 seed by dealing the Purple Roses a Saturday night loss that saddles them with a seed at No. 3 or worse.

As for St. Rose, the La Lumiere showdown – listed as 9:45 p.m. tip-off on Saturday night – is the second of two games for St. Rose at the Metro Classic and when it comes to power points and in-state bragging rights, the first one is an even bigger one for the Purple Roses. In the final game of Thursday night’s lineup, St. Rose will play St. Peter’s Prep in a game that could catapult St. Rose up the state rankings and power-points list should the Purple Roses author a winning effort against the No. 4 team in the state, according to NJ Advance Media.

St. Peter’s Prep hit a critical point in its season two weeks ago, when its standout 7-1 center Keiner Asprilla was arrested at school on a charge of rape in the state of Missouri. After losing to Jersey City rival Hudson Catholic in the first game without Asprilla, the Marauders have won three straight games and did not surrender more than 34 points in any of them – including a dominant, 53-34, win over Don Bosco.

St. Peter’s Prep is a junior-led team, starting with the backcourt duo of Richie Rosa and Mason Santiago. Rosa is putting up 16.3 points and 3.8 assists per game, while Santiago is averaging 11.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists.

St. Rose, meanwhile, is coming off an impressive 74-50 win over Boys Latin School of Baltimore over the weekend, which helped the Purple Roses shake off a Jan. 25 loss to Union Catholic – another top-10 team in New Jersey. Hodge has lived up to all expectations on an individual level this season with averages of 20.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.75 steals per game. Senior guard and 2024 All-Shore First-Team selection Evan Romano is also turning in a strong season (11.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.1 steals) and sophomore Avery Lynch (10.5 points per game) has stepped up as a third scoring option alongside the two returning starters.

Senior Bryan Ebeling and junior Tyler Cameron have been disruptive defenders and have also contributed to the scoring at different points as well. Freshmen Izayah Cooper and Oymere Rene provide energy on both ends off the bench and 6-foot-5 sophomore Tyler Hager has made his presence felt in the rotation for a team that has length in its back court, but lacks a natural frontcourt player.

A win over St. Peter’s Prep would solidify St. Rose’s place in the state top 10 and perhaps even the No. 2 spot on the Shore Conference power-point list, with a St. Peter’s Prep win carrying a value of 53 power points.

Whatever the results are, St. Rose will use the two Metro Classic games – the final two challenges in a loaded non-conference schedule – as its final tune-up for the postseason.

No Bad Days in Manasquan

From the first game of the season, Manasquan has been a team on a mission. Even without a star player in Adams and with three starters graduated from last year’s team, Manasquan has thrived against one of the toughest schedules in the Shore Conference.

On Saturday, the Warriors won a 40-26 slugfest at Red Bank Regional, which gave Manasquan wins over four of the other top six teams in the Shore Conference. The only top Shore team Manasquan has failed to beat is St. Rose, which swept the regular-season series over Manasquan. The first time the two teams played, Manasquan had St. Rose on the ropes on its home floor, but coughed up a 12-point lead with four minutes to go in a 50-45 loss.

Outside of that game, you would be hard-pressed to find a regret among any of Manasquan’s players because the Warriors have left it all out on the floor in their 18 games. Among those 16 wins are victories over CBA, Central Regional, Rumson-Fair Haven, Rutgers Prep and Lenape and Thursday’s game will be among the toughest challenges Manasquan faces all season.

“That’s why these guys decided to stay home and come to Squan,” Warriors coach Andrew Bilodeau said. “We play a great schedule. (St. Rose) has gone out and done it this year. There are a lot of teams out there that want to be where St. Rose or Manasquan is and they get there for a minute and it’s hard to maintain like St. Rose has, like Holmdel has – to be consistent and competitive every year. Part of that is your scheduling. You’ve got to play people so you’re always ready so when you get into these battles, you’re ready to play.”

Gill St. Bernard’s has already gone toe-to-toe with St. Rose in a 50-48 loss to the Purple Roses and will try to avoid dropping to 0-2 vs. the Shore Friday night against Manasquan in the 5 p.m. game at Franklin. Since dropping back-to-back games to St. Rose and Roselle Catholic, the Knights have won seven straight and ascended to the No. 5 ranking in the state thanks to a convincing win over Hudson Catholic.

Last year, Manasquan lost a one-sided game to Roselle Catholic at the Metro Classic and bounced back with a strong showing in the postseason – one that included appearances in the SCT final and the Group II semifinal following a fifth straight NJSIAA sectional title. A better performance at the Metro would make for an appropriate finish to what has been a brilliant regular season for Manasquan, but with a top two seed in the SCT now all but guaranteed, the shift in priority to the postseason has begun.

Dangerous Dawgs

The story of Rumson’s season a week ago was that the Bulldogs were strikingly talented as a roster but struggled to close out games. They only have four losses this season heading into Tuesday’s action, but three of them are losses to Manasquan, Red Bank Catholic and Red Bank in which Rumson led by double-figures at one point but failed to finish with the win.

Last week, the Bulldogs made encouraging strides in that department when they beat two SSI Top 10 teams in Holmdel and Red Bank Catholic, then put a scare into Hudson Catholic before ultimately falling, 57-49. In all three games, Rumson delivered big second-half runs – first to close out two capable Class A Coastal divisional opponents and then to cut a 19-point third-quarter deficit to four in the final two minutes vs. Hudson Catholic.

Part of Rumson’s late-game struggles this season could be the lingering effects of losing the Central Jersey Group II final at Manasquan last season – a game the Bulldogs seemingly had under control with 2:30 to go before Manasquan finished the game on a tear to snatch the trophy away.

“Coming off that loss last year, we knew we needed to get out get-back win and obviously, we didn’t respond this year,” Rumson senior David Carr said. “We were close with (Manasquan), RBR and RBC to where we think we should have beat them. We feel like were an undefeated team because we know we can beat those teams and if we keep pushing, we’re going to get there.”

Manasquan also beat Rumson in December of 2024, so the demons of that championship loss have yet to be exorcised for the Bulldogs and, to their credit, they are not running from those demons.

“We have been haunted by that game,” Junior Luke Cruz said of the Manasquan loss in February of 2024. “Every loss we have, that’s the one we think of. Honestly, the wins help make that go away, so we’re just trying to keep winning.”

Shooting has also been a difference for Rumson, which has long held a reputation under coach Chris Champeau as a program that gives most of its players the green light from beyond the three-point arc. The Bulldogs were in something of a team-wide slump during the early part of January but broke out in a big way with 21 three-pointers in a 90-51 win over Toms River North on Jan. 25.

“We always get our shots up,” Carr said. “At the beginning of the season, they weren’t really falling. Now we’re shooting the hell out of the ball.”

With a 6-9 forward who can both hit a 25-footer and protect the rim, plus group of athletic senior guards in Carr, Riley Gill and Carson Memmott and a capable third scorer and shooter in junior Luke Lydon, Rumson has the makings of a team that can do damage in the postseason again.

On Saturday at Franklin, the Bulldogs will wrap up their regular season against St. Joseph of Metuchen, which will follow a grudge match vs. Rumson-Fair Haven on Tuesday and a division finale vs. Middletown South on Thursday.

The Shore at the Metro Classic

At Franklin High School

Thursday, Feb. 6

Records through Monday, Feb. 3

St. Rose (14-5) vs. St. Peter’s Prep (16-3), 8 p.m.

Friday, Feb. 7

Manasquan (16-2) vs. Gill St. Bernard’s (14-4), 7 p.m.

La Lumiere (15-10) vs. Colonia (17-3), 8:30 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 8

Rumson-Fair Haven (13-4) vs. St. Joseph Metuchen (5-11), 11:45 a.m.

St. Rose (14-5) vs. La Lumiere (15-10), 9:45 p.m.