OIB Ortho Boys Basketball Team of the Week: Barnegat

2025 OIB Ortho/Shore Sports Insider Boys Basketball Team of the Week Series

Following a 44-40 win over Neptune on Wednesday night on its home floor, the Barnegat boys basketball team celebrated its sixth win in a row — a run that has catapulted the Bengals to the top of the Shore Conference Class B South standings and earned them the latest OIB Ortho Team of the Week award from Shore Sports Insider.

It has been a season of streaks for Barnegat and two of its senior leaders acknowledged that this current run of wins was born out of a losing streak.

After winning its first four games of the season, Barnegat dropped four straight to fall to 4-4, culminating with a double-digit loss at Pinelands in the first game of Barnegat’s division schedule.

“Pinelands was definitely a turnaround for us,” senior Mason Krey said. “That was a rough day. We won the first four games of the season and we were feeling confident. We got complacent, which is why we lost those games, which was unacceptable. After that, we just worked a lot harder.”

“It wasn’t fun, especially since Pinelands is our rival,” senior Cole Toddings said. “We knew we had to step up after that. Since then, we’ve lost one game and that was to CBA.”

That loss served as a wake-up call for the senior-driven Bengals, who responded with a win over Brick, followed by a loss to Christian Brothers Academy — the No. 4 ranked team in the Shore Sports Insider Top 10. After measuring itself against of the teams on the short list of Shore Conference Tournament championship contenders, Barnegat was ready to take off on its pursuit of the program’s first ever division championship.

“That was definitely our first real test of the season,” Krey said of hosting CBA. “We played hard, obviously we didn’t win, but we played together as a team for all 32 minutes and we carried that with us to the next game. Since then, we haven’t lost.”

Since the loss to CBA, the Bengals have rolled through the competition and while the three divisional wins are the most meaningful their championship chase, their two most eye-opening wins came against a pair of 10-win teams on consecutive Wednesday’s at the Big House in Barnegat.

“It has gotten a lot better in the last two weeks,” Krey said. “The only thing we have to do is play harder than the team we’re playing and we’ll always give ourselves a chance. That’s what it comes down to. We’ve just got to play hard.”

Last week, Barnegat took down Point Pleasant Boro, 58-53, less than a week before the Panthers (10-6) lost to No. 2 Manasquan, 59-45, in what was a five-point Point Boro deficit heading to the fourth quarter. Four of Point Boro’s losses this season are to No. 1 St. Rose and No. 2 Manasquan in divisional play, so Barnegat handing the Panthers one of their other two losses is a feather in the Bengals’ collective cap.

“We have played hard teams this year,” Toddings said. “CBA, Point Boro — it’s a tough road, but those are the games we want to play. It’s helped us learn how to compete a lot better.”

Krey and Toddings led the way against Point Boro, with Krey scoring a game-high 21 points and Toddings going for 16 points and 14 rebounds against a tough Panthers front line. Senior Kyle Greenleaf was an x-factor in the win as well, with the 6-foot-5 forward contributing eight points, five rebounds and four blocked shots.

One week later, Barnegat welcomed in another 10-win team to its home gym, with Neptune looking to pick up a key road win in a game that could have major implications when it comes to qualifying for the Shore Conference Tournament.

Krey, Toddings and fellow senior Todd Muhammad sparked the Bengals Wednesday against Neptune, with Krey scoring 14 points and handing out four assists, while both Toddings and Muhammad added 11 points each. Toddings also pulled in eight rebounds and dished out three assists as Barnegat went wire-to-wire without trailing and took the lead for good when it held Neptune scoreless for a stretch of just under eight minutes from the first minute of the second quarter to the first minute of the third.

“I don’t know how many games we have played like that over the last four years but it’s been a lot,” Krey said. “We (Krey and Toddings) have both been playing since we were freshmen, so it’s not anything that we’re not used to. We just stayed under control the whole time and trusted each other. If you don’t play under control, you’re not going to win.”

On top of winning the first division title for the program, this group of seniors is trying to qualify for the Shore Conference Tournament for the second straight season. Barnegat is currently in the field of 20 for this year’s SCT, which will be officially seeded on Sunday, Feb. 9.

“We’re just trying to first win the division,” Toddings said. “We have never done that in the history of the school, so we’re just taking it game by game. Fortunately, we have a chance to do both, so hopefully we can pull off both.”