NJSIAA Non-Public B Final Preview: St. Rose Seeks Repeat, Revenge vs. Roselle Catholic

NJSIAA Non-Public B Championship

Friday, March 14, 2025

At Jersey Mike’s Arena, Rutgers University

St. Rose vs. Roselle Catholic, 3 p.m.

 

Teams at a Glance

St. Rose (23-7; No. 1 seed in South Jersey)

Head Coach: Brian Lynch
Group Championships: 6 (1949, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1977, 2024)
Group Final Appearances: 15 (1947-49, 1952, 1956, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1971,1977, 1989, 2002, 2004, 2023, 2024)
Road to the Final: Defeated No. 8 Ranney, 68-46; No. 5 St. Joseph Hammonton, 80-39; No. 3 Rutgers Prep, 86-55.

Projected Starters

Jayden Hodge, Jr., 6-5 (19.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.5 steals, 0.8 blocks)

Evan Romano, Sr., 6-3 (12.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.8 steals, 0.6 blocks)

Bryan Ebeling, Sr., 6-3 (7.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 steals)

Avery Lynch, So., 6-5 (9.7 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.0 assists)

Tyler Cameron, Jr., 6-2 (4.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.4 assists)

Off the Bench

Izayah Cooper, Fr., 6-1 (5.5 points, 3.0 assists)

Oymere Rene, Fr., 6-2 (2.3 points, 1.0 assists)

Orien Campbell, Jr., 6-2 (2.5 points)

Tyler Hager, So., 6-5 (1.8 points, 2.0 rebounds, 0.6 blocks)

A year that started off with the team’s best player injuring his knee in a scary fall during the preseason, followed by a 10-point loss at home to a .500 team from North Jersey on opening night is ending where the last two St. Rose seasons have: at Rutgers.

Jayden Hodge sat out opening night as a precautionary measure following the aforementioned knee injury, watched his team get beat by Paramus Catholic at home, then returned the following game against Manasquan. From that point on, the junior has been a machine for St. Rose and the team has followed his lead.

A season ago, Hodge was a secondary option for a 29-2 St. Rose team led by his older brother, Matt, and was flanked by another senior, Gio Panzini. With Matt and Panzini gone was, Jayden has acknowledged the need for him to become the leader of the Purple Roses and to take on more responsibility, with help from senior returning starters Evan Romano and Bryan Ebeling.

Coach Brian Lynch did not make it easy on his returning starters to meet the new standard at St. Rose. The Purple Roses played a schedule nearly as difficult as the one they played a season ago and the only reason last year’s might have been tougher is because it included a loss to an undefeated Montverde team led by projected 2025 No. 1 NBA Draft pick and current Duke freshman Cooper Flagg.

The trying scheduled combined with the developmental process of a young supporting cast forced St. Rose to take its lumps along the way – most recently in the form of a 4-3 stretch that included losses to Union Catholic, St. Peter’s and La Lumiere (In.) – all by margins of four points or less. Since a 72-68 loss to Darius Adams and La Lumiere on Feb. 8, St. Rose has won eight straight games and all eight have been highly consequential. Four of the wins got the Purple Roses to their second straight Shore Conference Tournament championship and three of those were against the other three teams ranked in the top four of the Shore Sports Insider Top 10: No. 4 Central Regional in the quarterfinals, No. 2 Manasquan in the semifinals and No. 3 Christian Brothers Academy in the championship.

Between the SCT and the NJSIAA Tournament, St. Rose hosted Bergen Catholic when the Crusaders were ranked No. 1 in the state by NJ Advance Media and picked up a 72-68 win that catapulted the Purple Roses into the conversation for the state’s No. 1 ranking to end the year.

St. Rose might need some help to ascend all the way to No. 1, but the Purple Roses have done their part in the state tournament leading up to Friday afternoon at Jersey Mike’s Arena. After fighting off a pesky effort from Ranney in the sectional quarterfinal round and falling behind, 6-0, to St. Joseph Hammonton in the semifinals, St. Rose has been dominant. The Purple Roses beat St. Joseph by 41, then stomped Rutgers Prep – the No. 1 team in the state at the time – by 33 to capture their third straight South Jersey Non-Public B title.

Now, St. Rose turns its attention to Roselle Catholic – one of the blue-blood programs in New Jersey thanks to a brilliant 11-year run under former coach Dave Boff from 2012-13 to 2022-23 that included eight sectional titles, six overall Non-Pubilc B titles and four Tournament of Champions titles. Friday’s showdown represents a revenge game of sorts for Hodge, Romano, Ebeling and junior Tyler Cameron, who were all regular contributors on a 2022-23 St. Rose team that lost to Roselle Catholic in the 2023 Non-Public B final at Rutgers.

Roselle Catholic (23-6; No. 2 seed in North Jersey)

Head Coach: Todd Decker
Group Championships: 6 (2013-15, 2018, 2022, 2023)
Group Final Appearances: 9 (1963, 2013-16, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023)
Road to the Final: Defeated No. 7 Saddle River Day, 77-39; No. 3 Morris Catholic, 85-73; No. 1 Gill St. Bernard’s, 43-35.

Projected Starters

Trevon Lewis, Jr., 6-3 (18.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 2.5 steals, 1.7 blocks)

Tyrease Hunter, Jr., 6-3 (15.5 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.6 steals)

Jalen Grant, Jr., 6-0 (12.0 points, 3.6 assists, 1.6 steals)

Kahlik Thomas, Jr., 6-4 (7.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists)

Armagh Caldwell, Sr., 6-2 (5.1 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 2.1 steals)

Off the Bench

Isaiah Headley-Smith, Jr., 6-5 (4.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.7 blocks)

The revenge element for St. Rose is tempered on Friday because Roselle Catholic has so little remaining from its 2022-23 team that finished No. 1 in the state under Boff – now the head coach at College Achieve in Asbury Park. Todd Decker is now in his second season leading the Lions from the sideline and after a rebuilding season – albeit, a competitive one – with a young team in 2023-24, Decker and his team have returned Roselle Catholic to the ranks of the elite in New Jersey with a team of hard-nosed, blue-collar guards.

The lone contributor from the 2022-23 championship team still in the program is junior point guard Jalen Grant, who saw key minutes off the bench playing behind the likes of current St. John’s guard Simeon Wilcher and current Indiana sophomore Mackenzie Mgbako. Grant is part of a three-headed scoring monster of juniors that drives the Roselle Catholic offense, with Trevon Lewis leading the way at 18 points per game and Tyrease Hunter backing him up at a clip of better than 15 per game. Lewis will be two games removed from a monster, 39-point effort in Roselle Catholic’s high-scoring, shootout win over Morris Catholic in the North Jersey semifinals.

Like St. Rose, Roselle Catholic does not have a traditional front-court player, but the Lions have players like Kahlik Thomas and Isaiah Headley-Smith who can do the job. Armagh Caldwell, meanwhile, is the only senior in an otherwise all-junior rotation for Roselle Catholic.

While St. Rose punished an overmatched South Jersey section to reach the championship, Roselle Catholic battled through two state top 20 opponents to reach its ninth group final in the last 11 that have been contested. The Lions beat a Morris Catholic squad ranked No. 16 in the state in the semifinals, then outlasted No. 7 Gill St. Bernard’s in the North Jersey Non-Public B championship game to earn a trip back to the state finals after missing out last season.

Roselle Catholic’s success against quality competition continued a trend the Lions have maintained throughout the season. Over the course of the year, Roselle Catholic has played 16 games against teams ranked in the NJ.com Top 20 and is 11-5 in those games. Its only in-state losses are to No. 11 Hudson Catholic, No. 1 Plainfield (twice), No. 17 Elizabeth and No. 3 Bergen Catholic. On Friday afternoon, Roselle Catholic will play its 17th game vs. a top 20 opponent, with St. Rose checking in at No. 2 in the most recent rankings.

The Matchup

St. Rose and Roselle Catholic are similar rosters: athletic, hard-working guards who, in a lot of ways, have overachieved this season thanks to that hard work and the chemistry both have built over the course of the year. There will only be three seniors playing important minutes on Friday, led by championship-game veterans Romano and Ebeling for St. Rose.

That championship experience gives the Purple Roses an edge on Friday, with Roselle Catholic getting a taste of that big-game pressure in a loss to Plainfield in the Union County final before bouncing back with a win over Gill St. Bernard’s in the sectional final. St. Rose, however, has played in three straight sectional finals and two straight Shore Conference Tournament finals while also playing at Rutgers in each of the last two Non-Public B championship games. Outside of Grant’s experience as a freshman two years ago, taking the floor at Rutgers in one of the final games of the season in New Jersey will be a new experience for the Lions players, while St. Rose has five starters in Hodge, Romano, Ebeling, Cameron and Avery Lynch who have been there before.

If St. Rose has been at all vulnerable this year, it has been in settling into games. Its early deficit to St. Joseph of Hammonton has been part of a trend of slow starts for St. Rose. There was the early-season 12-point deficit to Manasquan in the fourth quarter that the Purple Roses erased over the final four minutes to steal a road victory. There was an 11-point deficit overcome vs. Archbishop Stepinac in December. No. 6 St. Peter’s Prep looked poised to rout St. Rose when the Marauders jumped out to a 24-9 lead against the Purple Roses at the Metro Classic, only for St. Rose to rally to tie the game before ultimately falling, 56-53.

In the postseason, St. Rose led Central by just three points at halftime after trailing for most of the first half in the SCT quarterfinals, only to accelerate past the Golden Eagles for a 22-point win. St. Rose shook off rough starts to beat both Manasquan and CBA in closing out its second straight SCT title and in the South Jersey final vs. Rutgers Prep, the Purple Roses held a one-point lead in the middle of the second quarter before building it to 10 by halftime, then scoring the first 23 points of the third quarter to turn the game into a rout.

Roselle Catholic will try to capitalize on St. Rose’s tendency to start slow and then stay on them throughout the game with its swarming defense. St. Rose, however, has seen plenty of that and has four capable ball-handlers against that sort of pressure in Romano, Ebeling, Hodge and freshman Izayah Cooper off the bench.

Speaking of the bench, St. Rose also has the edge in depth, with the Purple Roses going nine deep while Roselle Catholic gets it done with six. That is one of the reasons St. Rose has been able to pull away from or come back against teams in the second half and that will be something to watch on Friday, particularly if the game is called tight and Decker has to manage any foul trouble.

With the edge in depth and experience, plus the best player on the floor in Hodge, St. Rose has everything it needs to claim its second straight Non-Public B championship and make its final case to finish the season No. 1 in New Jersey. Roselle Catholic has a chance to start a special two-year run, but will have to overcome those aforementioned disadvantages to get started on a new dynasty on Friday at Rutgers.

The Pick: St. Rose, 67-59