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Super Boley: George Beats Cramps, Jackson Beats Central for A South Title

Matt Manley|February 7, 2026|Last Updated February 7, 2026

JACKSON TWP. — George Boley is accustomed to playing a full 32 minutes for his Jackson Township boys basketball team, but on Friday night, it was the first time the senior was prepared to play 32 minutes with a championship on the line for both teams on the floor.

The early intensity Boley exerted may have caused the leg cramps that cut into his time on the floor during the fourth quarter, but the game he played while on the court and the effort from his teammates to cover his scattered fourth-quarter absence was all Jackson needed to set a new bar for a new school.

Boley came out on fire and scored 19 of his game-high 29 points in the first half and the Jaguars’ defense starred in the second half to complete a 57-53 win over defending division champion Central Regional that clinches Jackson its first official Shore Conference Class A South championship as Jackson Township High School.

“I feel like I gave a little extra tonight because it was for the A South championship,” Boley said. “It’s the first ever in Jackson Township history, so I just wanted to be out there for my team, for my school and leave it out on the floor.”

“The message at practice was, ‘We haven’t won here, so let’s make history,” said Jackson coach Randy Holmes, who coached Lakewood High School to 10 consecutive division championships from 2009 to 2018, plus two NJSIAA sectional championships and a Shore Conference Tournament title in 2013. “Get your team on a banner, become the first team since the merger to win a division. That had a lot to with our energy tonight, plus we want to play for a good seed in the Shore Conference Tournament.”

Prior to the merger between Jackson Memorial and Jackson Liberty for this school year, no Jackson boys basketball team had won a division championship since Jackson Liberty won Class B South in 2018-19, when the Lions were coached by current Jackson assistant Mike Antenucci. The time the Class A South championship in boys basketball resided in Jackson was 2014, when Jackson Memorial was at the top of A South.

“It feels good as seniors,” said senior guard Yaseer Johnson, who celebrated Senior Night along with his classmates by helping win Jackson’s new high school its first title of any kind in boys basketball. This is our last year as players in the program and it feels good knowing we left something to put up in the gym. We can always come back and look at the banner and know we put that up there.”

“We felt like we have had some really good teams (at Jackson Memorial) over the years, but we were never able to finish it,” said Boley, who transferred to Jackson Memorial High School for his junior season after playing his freshman year at Roselle Catholic and sophomore year at College Achieve in Asbury Park. “To be able to give this to the coaches and to ourselves, it just told us that if you do this, then the rest of your life, you come into this gym and see what you did here.”

The first time Jackson and Central clashed this season back on Jan. 20, Jackson established a double-digit lead, fell behind by 12 in the third quarter and rallied to win, 58-48, in one of the roller-coaster games of the Shore Conference season. Friday’s de facto Class A South championship game was a more tempered version of that game, but both teams built leads of nearly double-digits that they struggled to hold.

Central led by as many as eight in the first half before Jackson outscored the Golden Eagles 20-8 over a long stretch of the second quarter to flip the 23-15 deficit to a 35-31 lead. Foul trouble for Central junior Derek Roth played into his team’s struggles, with the Jaguars inflicting most of their second-quarter damage while Roth watched from the bench with two fouls.

Even amid the foul trouble, Roth countered Boley’s 19 first-half points with 16 of his own, including a fading shot as he was fouled with two seconds left in the half after he came off the bench for Central’s final offensive possession of the second quarter. After Roth missed the free throw, Jackson led, 35-33, at halftime. Roth finished with 23 points, five rebounds and three assists, with Jackson slowing him down in the second half with a box-and-one defense that featured a variety of defenders against him.

“We knew Roth is a good player,” Boley said. “We knew he was going to hit some tough shots. We knew he was going to make some tough plays, so we didn’t really sweat it early on because that’s just what he does. We just had to stay calm and play our game.”

Jackson did not trail again and took a 51-42 lead on a short pull-up by Boley on the first possession of the fourth quarter, but he stayed down on the floor as he was stricken by a cramp in his right leg. He returned just after the midway point of the quarter, but returned to the bench after his other leg began to cramp wat the three-minute mark.

“That’s never happened to me, honestly,” Boley said of the cramps. “I play 32 minutes almost every game and I never cramped up like that before. It was kind of a shock to me.”

“One thing that separates George from a lot of other All-Shore-type players is he plays defense,” Holmes said. “So, when he is playing defense and he is scoring, then the other team has hell to pay. He is a big, strong kid who is leaning on you and he’s after your energy, then you have to guard him.”

Even with Boley out, Jackson managed thanks to its defensive effort and a handful of key scores. The Jaguars took their largest lead of the game in the fourth quarter, when Johnson knocked down a jumper to make it 53-42. Johnson and sophomore Mi’Aire Anderson each finished with nine points, with Anderson also grabbing seven rebounds.

“George put us in a great position with his scoring early and we just had to carry it on and just play defense,” Johnson said.

“We’re more than just George,” Holmes said. “I give him the freedom to go ahead play and the guys buy into it. No one has seen it, because he almost never comes out, but we can hold our own without him and sometimes it’s easier without him because it’s a much simpler defense. There are not double-teams, no box-and-ones and we can just run our normal stuff. Everyone stars in their role.”

Central made one last push to pull even with an 8-1 run that cut Jackson’s lead to 54-50 with under two minutes left. Once again, Boley came back to the court and helped Jackson get a stop on defense, then hit a pair of free throws to push the Jaguars lead to 56-50.

Roth answered with a three-pointer that he banked in with eight seconds left and after a timeout, Central put Boley back on the free-throw line. The senior missed the first, but hit the second to extend the Jackson lead to two scores, 57-53, and Central ran out of time.

Senior center and Penn State football commit Elijah Reeder backed up Roth with nine points, six rebounds and four blocked shots for Central. Friday’s loss snapped a run of three straight seasons with a division championship for the Golden Eagles, who won Class B South in both 2023 and 2024 before bulldozing Class A South a year ago on the way to a 24-4 season. Despite Roth returning as the lone starter from a year ago, Central found itself with a chance to win a fourth straight division title Friday night.

Jackson, meanwhile, came full circle with its victory Friday. In the first meeting at Central, the Jaguars stood at a crossroads for this season, mired in a slump and trailing Central by 12 points after squandering a double-digit lead of their own. A loss would have put the Jaguars two games behind Central in the standings with a home game vs. Southern Regional — which beat Jackson, 56-40, in Stafford Township in early January —  scheduled for three days later.

Instead of losing for the fifth time in eight games, Jackson stormed back with a 26-3 run and won a game that set off what is now a six-game winning streak for the Jaguars.

“We have been down before, so we know how to handle those situations,” Boley said. “Stay calm, stay poised, get stops and once we get in a little rhythm, we’re able to get things going.”

Jackson also improved its record at home to 8-0 and the Jaguars are hoping they will not have to leave their gym in either of the first two rounds of the Shore Conference Tournament. With a 14-4 record that includes a division championship and two wins over reigning NJSIAA Group II champion Manasquan, Jackson has a strong case to be seeded No. 8 or better when the bracket is released on Sunday, which would guarantee the Jaguars both a first-round bye and a home game in the round of 16. The SCT quarterfinals, semifinals and championship will all be at neutral sites.

The lone drawback of Jackson’s résumé is that its four losses are all by at least a 16-point margin and an average of 24.5. The flip-side of that is when Jackson has been in competitive games, the Jaguars have won them. Throw in the presence of Boley plus a senior-led supporting cast of players who have embraced their roles in the name of winning and Jackson believes it has the formula to enjoy a long stay in the SCT, as well as the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV playoffs.

Before that, however, Jackson will play on Saturday morning at Point Pleasant Beach in a battle of the two power-point leaders in Ocean County.

“We need to celebrate this,” Johnson said of the division title. “But we also have to know that we have a game (Saturday) and we have to come focused.”

“We’re as locked-in as we have ever been for the postseason,” Boley said. “There are some things we can get better at, especially defensively. Other than some little tweaks we need to make, we feel like we’re prepared for the postseason.”

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