Ranney Rolls Into Postseason Rematch With St. Rose

TINTON FALLS — The last four times the Ranney boys basketball team has been one win from playing St. Rose in a tournament setting, Ranney’s opponent has eliminated the Panthers.

That is especially frustrating for Ranney’s players — especially junior Shaan Nayar and senior MeSean Williams — considering the last time Ranney did get a chance to play St. Rose in a tournament setting, the Panthers pulled off an improbable upset with an even more improbable comeback in the 2023 Shore Conference Tournament semifinals.

After a three-point shooting display against Doane Academy Friday night that has come to define Ranney at its best, Nayar, Williams and their teammates will finally get their postseason shot at St. Rose with a chance to author an even more unlikely story of victory.

Nayar led a shooting barrage Friday with 20 points, including six of Ranney’s 15 three-pointers in an 88-57 rout of Doane Academy — the No. 9 seed in the NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public B section. Now, the eighth-seeded Panthers will prepare for a Monday night meeting with top-seeded St. Rose in Belmar with both Ranney and the defending Non-Public B champion flying high off their recent victories. St. Rose defeated Bergen Catholic — the No. 1 team in the state, according to NJ Advance Media — Wednesday in a regular-season game.

“I think there is a lot of motivation for us,” Nayar said. “I’m excited to play them. I think we can beat them. I think we can have a good game against them.  I think we can get the shots we want when we’re all sharing the ball like we did today.”

“You always want to put yourself in a position where you can compare yourself against the best,” Ranney coach Tahj Holden said. “We have our history with St. Rose and the battles we have had over the years. We have been up while they have been down, they have been up when we were down, so it’s just nice to give ourselves the opportunity to go out and test ourselves against one of the best teams in the state.”

After a slow start shooting the ball on Friday, Nayar warmed up at the end of the second quarter. With Ranney clinging to a 30-25 lead, Nayar hit two three-pointers as part of an 8-0 run to close out the half and send the Panthers to the locker room with a 38-25 lead. Ranney then scored the first eight points of the third quarter to make it a 16-0 run and a 46-25 lead that never got closer than 17 the rest of the way.

Halftime in South Non-Public B: Ranney 38, Doane 25. Shaan Nayar got off to a slow start but hit a pair of threes as part of an 8-0 Ranney run to finish the half. pic.twitter.com/dnBRpYvSWQ

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) February 28, 2025

“We have a lot of shooters and when we get hot, we get really hot,” Nayar said. “We get into that gear, we pull away.”

Nayar also pitched in six rebounds and three assists in the win. Sophomore teammate Alex Heyser scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half while also dishing out five assists and classmate Andrew Mardahaev posted 13 points, six rebounds and three blocked shot for Ranney. Williams contributed 12 points and four assists to help his team advance.

“I think we shared the ball a little bit better as the game went on and we go a couple of open looks we just hit,” Holden said. “A couple of games ago we would get those looks and we weren’t hitting them, so we’d get down and we would start pressing. We didn’t do that tonight. We kept moving the ball, kept playing and we were able to find that crack in the defense to get ourselves an open shot on most of our possessions.”

Last season, St. Rose dominated Ranney during the regular season, just as the Purple Roses did to every other Shore Conference opponent in finishing No. 1 in New Jersey at 29-2. So, when the Panthers lost their first-round game to Wildwood Catholic and missed out on playing the Purple Roses in the sectional quarterfinals, it might not have been much of a missed opportunity.

Nayar, however, does not view it like that. He was a key player off the bench as a freshman on the 2022-23 Ranney team that reached the Shore Conference Tournament championship game by shocking St. Rose in overtime after trailing by 13 points with under three minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Williams, meanwhile, was a starter and current senior Justin Buck a contributor off the bench on that Ranney team and while the three top scorers on that SCT finalist — Isaac Hester, Jahlil Bethea and Drew Buck — typically carried the offense, having three players on the roster so closely associated with that specific game give Ranney credentials that most other teams don’t have against St. Rose.

“Even last year, we believed we could beat them,” Nayar said. “It’s the same thing this year. I’m very excited to play them. I think we match up well against them.”

“You play the games that are on your schedule,” Holden said. “We want to give ourselves the opportunity to play a St. Rose and to see where we are and how we can match up and what are we going to do to be able to combat what they do really well. We’re at the point now, so we just have to go make the best of the situation.”

The bad news for the Panthers is they will not be taking on the Purple Roses at full strength. Sophomore starter and 6-foot-4 forward Brody Mauro has missed the last 15 games with a leg injury, taking the only conventional interior presence away from Holden and his team. Mauro averaged 10.2 points seven rebounds, two assists and one blocked shot during his eight games prior to the injury, with Ranney going 6-2 in those games. One of those losses was a 68-64 loss at Christian Brothers Academy against the Shore Conference Tournament runner-up.

“Losing Brody, we all had to step up defensively and on the boards too,” Nayar said. “I had the step up, Justin (Buck) had to step up, Andrew (Mardahaev) had to step up on the boards. At first, it was hard because Brody is such a big piece, but I think we have gotten to the point where we figured out those new roles.”

Ranney’s initial stretch without Mauro was troublesome. The Panthers beat Marlboro to improve to 7-2, then dropped five straight games — including three straight by double-digit margins to Freehold Township, Red Bank Catholic and CBA.

“It took us a while because there just isn’t a lot of practice time in the middle of the schedule,” Holden said. “They were still figuring out how to play before Brody got hurt. When he got hurt, it was like, ‘Okay, now I have to step up.’ It has been one guy here one game, another guy the next game, and so on. It’s rarely been two or three guys stepping up and having a big game at the same time. Today, it was two or three guys that we had come in and have a big game. We’re at the point in the season where the sophomores aren’t really sophomores anymore. None of this feels new.”

Holden and his team continued its search for a new formula without Mauro and have since settled in. Ranney has sat at the .500 (winning percentage) mark on multiple occasions, but has not dipped below that number. The Panthers lost on a buzzer-beater at Lacey in their first game after being eliminated from the Shore Conference Tournament by Jackson Memorial in the opening round and have bounced back with three straight wins heading to St. Rose on Monday.

Improved rebounding and defense throughout the roster has helped the Panthers patch up the void left by Mauro, but when it comes down to it, the three-point shot has been a significant factor in Ranney’s success this season and remains their best weapon at St. Rose. The 15 three-pointers Ranney hit on Friday were a season-high in a single game and it marked the seventh time this season the Panthers have hit 10 or more in a game.

“We’re all shooters,” Nayar said. “We spread the floor well and we all play off each other really well too.”

The three-point-heavy attack is by design for Ranney, whose players have marching orders from Holden to shoot at least 32 of them per game — within the confines of the offense, of course.

“It’s not like we just throw them up,” Holden said. “Some of the threes in transition I don’t love, but I’m happy with them because they are open. They need to be in the right position, but I don’t think we took any bad shots today. Historically, when we take a bad shot, we follow it with another bad shot and another one. We eliminated that today.”

“I love it. I love shooting threes and I think all our guys love shooting threes. I embrace it — I have since I got here. I think all of us live by the three and die by the three.”

In addition to Nayar’s six threes on Friday, six other Ranney players knocked down at least one three: Mardahaev (three), Heyser (two), Williams, Buck, junior Jameson Jurofsky and sophomore Jordan Rue.

It will take more than just a good shooting night in Belmar for Ranney to upend St. Rose, but the Panthers have justifiable confidence going into the game and the green light to let shots fly against the Shore’s No. 1 team and the defending group champion.

“We go in there, we’ve got nothing to lose,” said Holden, who is the last coach prior to St. Rose’s Brian Lynch to lead a team from the Shore Conference to a No. 1 final ranking in the state. “We play loose, we get to our spots, we hit some shots, put a little pressure on them and we’ll see how it goes. If all things go our way, we’ll be in the game and we’ll see how St. Rose deals with it. They have been in some, but it’s a little different when there are so many expectations on your shoulders and I know because we have been in that spot.”

“The main thing is confidence,” Nayar said. “I’m confident we can win, we’re all confident we can win. If we have a good game all-around — defensively and we make shots — and think we have a good shot.”