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Winning Time: Freehold Boro Finds Championship Form in the Fourth at Midd. North

Matt Manley|February 27, 2025|Last Updated February 27, 2025

MIDDLETOWN — The Freehold Boro boys basketball team has been waiting all season for its Group III championship defense to start and when it finally got underway Wednesday at Middletown North, that title defense looked like it might be short-lived.

Championship teams, however, don’t typically get knocked out in the first quarter and even though the Colonials stumbled out of the gate at Middletown North on Wednesday, they stayed in the game and looked every bit of a defending champion in the fourth quarter.

Senior Brian Tassey scored a team-high 15 points and hit the three-pointer that ignited a furious run to close out a 61-44 victory over Middletown North — the No. 8 seed in the Central Jersey Group III section.

Tassey also pulled in seven rebounds and handed out three assists for Freehold Boro, which took the lead for good, 42-41, on Tassey’s three to cap the third-quarter scorer. From there, the Colonials outscored the Lions, 19-3, in the fourth quarter to make it a 22-3 run over the game’s final 10 minutes.

“We’re Freehold Boro, they are Middletown North. We’re the defending champs and we know what to do late in games, especially in the fourth quarter,” Tassey said. “We have come back down from 15-plus points and go up by 15, so we know how to play in the fourth quarter and we know how to play together as a team.”

The 15 points from Tassey were part of a Freehold Boro scoring attack that featured four players with at least nine points, including two players coming off the bench to combine for 26 points. Senior Qua’Mir Everett did not start the game, but finished strong. He scored eight of his 14 points in the fourth quarter while also pulling down seven rebounds. Junior Mike Cush, meanwhile scored 12 points off the bench.

Senior Aidan Hamlin-Woolfolk also left his fingerprints on the game with nine points, seven rebounds and five assists. Hamlin-Woolfolk, Tassey and Everett — the three returning starters from last year’s sectional championship team — also blocked one shot apiece in the win.

“Our bigs, we’re competitive, but we don’t label ourselves as bigs,” said Hamlin-Woolfolk, referencing his all-around skills at 6-foot-5, as well as those of Tassey at 6-4 and Everett at 6-3. “We label ourselves as all-around threats. We can defend, we can play-make, we can score and we can defend the rim.”

Tassey scored the first five points of the game to get Freehold Boro off and running, but Middletown North outscored Freehold Boro, 19-5, during the remainder of the quarter to take a nine-point lead going into the second quarter. Junior Eddie Lopez and senior Colin Byrne combined for 16 points in the quarter and 34 for the game.

Lopez scored nine of his game-high 18 points in the first quarter, while Byrne scored seven of his 16 points in the first. Lopez also hit shots as time expired in both the first and second quarters, including a 27-foot three-pointer that beat the halftime buzzer and sent the Lions into the locker room with a 26-23 lead.

“We knew they were a good team,” Tassey said of Middletown North. “We knew they had shooters, mainly Lopez and Colin. We knew they were going to hit shots, so we just wanted to face adversity. We did that a lot last year. This team this year is more we than me and when we’re together like that, there really nobody in the state bracket that can play with us.”

Freehold Boro picked up its defensive intensity during the second quarter. The Colonials went on a 13-2 run to surge in front, 23-21. Byrne then hit a pair of free throws and Lopez hit his long three to pull Middletown North back in front. During the second quarter, Middletown North’s only points came off a steal and breakaway layup by junior Brayden Marcotte, and those five points by Byrne and Lopez in the final minute-plus of the quarter.

“We definitely amped up our defense in the second quarter,” Tassey said. “They got so many backdoor cuts on us in the first quarter, so our focus was to just cut that off, stop the open threes and make them drive on us. We’re an athletic team, we’re going to get some hands on the ball and we’re going to advance in transition.”

The third quarter was a shot-for-shot duel by both teams, with Byrne hitting go-ahead shots on back-to-back attempts. His jumper gave the Lions a 34-33 lead, but Everett responded with a midrange jumper on the other end to put Freehold Boro back in front. Byrne then hit back with a three-pointer and senior Damien Merker scored on a putback to give Middletown North a 39-35 lead with 3:12 left in the third.

Hamlin-Woolfolk scored on a drive to the basket and Cush hit a floater to tie the game, 39-39, before Byrne knocked down another jumper to put Middletown North back on top, 41-39.

On the next possession, Tassey stepped back from a defender and nailed a three from the right wing that put Freehold Boro in front for good with just under two minutes to play in the third.

The Colonials then scored the first 10 points of the fourth quarter, pushing their run to 13-0 before Marcotte hit a three-pointer that proved to be Middletown North’s only points of the fourth quarter.

“In the fourth quarter, it played out how we wanted it to play out,” Hamlin-Woolfolk said. “We communicate, we switch, we defend. We do everything our coach (Ben DiBiase) tells us to do and coming into this tournament, we want to repeat. We want to do everything it takes to make it back to the state final because we know we took a tough L last year (vs. Ramapo).”

Freehold Boro entered Wednesday with an 18-7 record and a Shore Conference Class B North division championship that marks the Colonials’ first division title since 2009-10. Despite those accomplishments coupled with their run to the Group III championship game in 2023-24, the Colonials drew the No. 9 seed in Central Jersey Group III, which means their entire state tournament run — however long its lasts — will be on the road.

Part of Freehold Boro’s power-point problems were out of the hands of the players. The Colonials were placed in a division with four teams that failed to win 10 games, including a 0-19 Asbury Park team that carried fewer power points as a win than most teams carried as a loss. Ocean is at nine wins and plays Manasquan in the first round of the Central Group II Playoffs on Thursday, while Monmouth (7-17) and Long Branch (6-18) both failed to make the state tournament.

Some of Freehold Boro’s seeding issues were preventable. The Colonials loaded up their schedule to compensate for the weak divisional schedule, which led to the Colonials suffering lopsided losses to Christian Brothers Academy and Manasquan in December and to Rutgers Prep in January. They also dropped more competitive games to Red Bank, Rumson-Fair Haven and Southern Regional during the regular season and lost at Central Regional, 46-44, in the Shore Conference Tournament round of 16.

“We’re not going to see any team in this tournament that’s better than what we have already seen this year,” Hamlin-Woolfolk said. “We played Rutgers Prep, we played CBA, we played Manasquan, we played Central. We lost those games, but they helped prepare us for playoffs.”

“I think we came into the year with our egos a little too big after last year,” Everett said. “We got punched in the mouth in the first game (vs. CBA) and it took us a little while to start playing how we’re supposed to. But that game and all those other games made us better as a team and now it’s the playoffs. And it’s just the beginning.”

The Colonials took a six-point lead into the fourth quarter of the loss at Rumson; fell behind by 21 at Southern with seven minutes to go before coming back to tie the game and ultimately losing on a free throw with eight seconds left; and missed a potential tying shot at the buzzer at Central with the SCT quarterfinals on the line.

Later in the regular season, however, the Colonials picked up a pair of confidence-building wins. They knocked off Wildwood Catholic at the Battle at Barnegat on Feb. 1 and after being eliminated from the SCT, Freehold Boro took a trip to Phillipsburg and beat the 19-win Stateliners, 64-63.

“When we’re at our at our highest, it looks really good,” Tassey said. “When we’re at our lowest, sometimes it looks really bad. We’re hoping we’re going to be at our highest the rest of the way.”

“We’re prepared for those situations,” Everett said. “We do that every single practice: clock running, close game and we have to figure it out. Then, we bring that to the game. You saw today, we played a terrible first quarter, down three at half and we came out as a ‘we’ team in the second half. We’re just a team that, if we don’t come to play enough in the first half, I promise you, we’re coming to play in the second half. Right now, our mindset is to keep our foot on the gas, keep pushing and don’t give up on each other, no matter what the scoreboard says.”

Hamlin-Woolfolk was the man who missed the last shot at Central and he has been waiting almost two weeks for a chance to make up for its. Thanks to his two-way energy and that of his teammates over the final 10 minutes, the game did not come down to the final possession.

“We don’t see ourselves as main options,” Hamlin-Woolfolk said. “Everybody is an option out on the court. But when it comes down to the last shot, our coach wants one of the three of us to take it. But we all have trust in our teammates. If they miss, we’re going to be there to pick you up. I missed the shot in the Central game and my guys picked me up. It felt harsh, because we wanted to win and I missed the last layup, but it’s only made us stronger.”

By winning Wednesday night, Freehold Boro earns a return trip to Red Bank Regional, where the top-seeded Bucs await the Colonials in a game that will have added meaning for both teams. Freehold Boro is returning to the gym in which it clinched its first sectional title in 51 years a year ago, while Red Bank would like to pay Freehold Boro back for that sectional championship loss at home.

Red Bank beat Freehold Boro in the Albert E. Martin Buc Holiday Classic championship game in Red Bank back in December and while that was a satisfying win for the Bucs because of how their 2023-24 season ended, it was not quite the full dose of revenge. Red Bank’s players know that, as do Freehold Boro’s.

“They like to call it revenge for last year’s tournament when they beat us in the Christmas tournament,” Tassey said. “Honestly, we’re going in as the defending champs and they’re not. We are keeping that in our head. We know we are a better team than them. They are going to come to play. Obviously, they have really good players, but I still believe we’re better overall and I think we’re going to show that.”

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