NJ girls hoops: How the Shore Conference became full of D1 talent (2025)

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Incoming D1 players Current D1 players

In the 31-year history of the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions, at least one Shore Conference team has been represented in the tournament 30times, a state record for leagues by a wide margin.

College recruiters have taken note. There are currently 42 Shore alums who played or are currently still play basketball at the Division I level this year, highlighted by Manasquan graduate Marina Mabrey, who won a national championship with Notre Dame last year and could repeat as a champion with another loaded Fighting Irish team.

Eight of those players will graduate at the end of the year, but 11 more current high school seniors from the Shore will flood the D1 ranks next year, including Manasquan’s Faith Masonius, one of four five-star commitments toMaryland, giving the Terrapins one of the nation's top recruiting classes.

Does the Shore have the best conference in the state and one of the best in the country? There areno strong arguments against those assessments.

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"I feel like the Shore kids are as good as any place I've recruited so far,"said James Young, the associate head coach for Monmouth University. "When I go to games and Iwatch players, you're not going to just see teams from my league (Metro Athletic Conference) or the Patriot League or the Ivy League (also watching). You're going to see Power Five. They have developed an outstanding reputation as Shore Conference kids."

Local longtime basketball observers say the competitiveness of the Shore Conference dates back to the late 1970s.Mary Beth Chambers, the St. Rose High School head coach and a former AAU coach, played for St. Rose in the '70s, a time when girls didn’t have easy access to athletic programs, she said.

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The girls basketball program at St. Rose picked up some momentum and popularity alongside other programs like Asbury Park, which dominated during that time. By the time Chambers graduated, there was an intense and raucous energy at girls basketball games, she said.

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"In '77, '78, '79, we had sellout games back then," Chambers said. "It was one of the greatest atmospheres. Starting from that time and going through that experience, Ithink that it's contagious because you want that feeling of winning."

From there, girls basketball in the Shore Conference continued to gain momentum. By the 1990s, when St. John Vianney dominated with five TOC titles during the decade, some of the best girls basketball players in the state were playing in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

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Joe Montano, who just finished his 29th year coaching at Red Bank Catholic, says he initially got weird looks from other people when they saw his girls teams in the weight room. While the rest of the state lagged behind in girls basketball training, the Shore was ahead of the curve.

“We treated them like athletes well before most of the state treated them like athletes,” Montano said. “We challenged them, we did extra workouts, we came in four, five days a week before AAU was popular in the summertime and worked out for three, four hours a day.”

Once multiple programs became elite and sent graduated players to D1 schools, the mythology and lore of the Shore Conference continued to grow. It’s something that girls entering the high school ranks hopeto be like. Some even relocate to get themselves into a Shore Conference district with the hopes of becoming the next Mabrey.

“I think that these girls grow up watching talented basketball players playing at a highly competitive level when they’re in third, fourth, fifth grade, and they want to aspire to be that,” said Lisa Kukoda, a seven-year head coach at Manasquan and former player at RBC. “They’re working as elementary players and middle school players trying to get to that level that they see the current players at.”

While the reputation of the Shore helps girls aspire to be great, the programs themselves mold these players. They're taught how to play the game the right way even in the youth programs, well before they hit the high school courts.

Young, who previously coached at Red Bank Regional and Rumson-Fair Haven, feels some of the best coaches in the state can be found at the Shore. Between them, the AAU programs and the individual skill programs, players are constantly being taught the right way to play.

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A player could be the greatest raw athlete in the country, but college coaches won't recruit them if they don't know how to play the game, Young said.

“They’re more college-ready because they’ve been in programs where they’ve been groomed to get there, where in some other places a kid might score 30 points a game but they don’t really know how to practice or how to do a scout,” said 13-year St. John Vianney coach and SJV alum Dawn Karpell.

Intense competition within the loaded Shore teams promotes excellence.

“Everybody is competing with each other,” Karpell said. “It raises the bar and the standard.”

College coaches, Kukoda said, "know that recruiting a kid out of the Shore, you’re getting a kid who’s been in tough spots, been in big games who had to fight for time and had to put in the work every day.''

Incoming D1 players

Jackson Memorial

Dani Evans, NJIT

Manasquan

Faith Masonius, Maryland

Lola Mullaney, Harvard

Manchester Township

Leilani Correa, West Virginia

St. John Vianney

Brelynn Bellamy, William & Mary

Sajada Bonner, Quinnipiac

Rahmena Henderson, Sam Houston State

Sarah Karpell, Fordham

St. Rose

Lauren Lithgow, Army

Toms River North

Brielle Bisogno, Towson

Jenna Paul, Colgate

Current D1 players

Colts Neck

Kaity Healy, Seton Hall

Freehold Township

Tori Wagner, St. Francis (Brooklyn)

Holmdel

Victoria Cardaci, Seton Hall

Mia Ehling, St. Francis (Brooklyn)