March Madness hits Two River Rec hoops league
BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer

SHREWSBURY — “March Madness” began a little early for the towns of Shrewsbury, Little Silver and Red Bank.

Over 400 boys and girls grades five through eight from those three area towns participated in the Two River Recreation Basketball League, which capped off another successful season with exciting playoff action and championship games in all four divisions.

The NCAA can only hope its version of March Madness comes close to matching it the rest of the way.

With the March 6 title games, the Two River Recreation Basketball League completed its second season, but its origins go back even farther.

PHOTOS BY CHRIS KELLY staff At left, Tyler Conley of the Shrewsbury Hawks drives to the hoop during the boys’ fifth/sixth-grade final in Shrewsbury on March 6. Above, Shrewsbury’s Billy Herchakowski tries to shoot over a pair of Little Silver Jasper defenders.

“Before last year, Shrewsbury and Little Silver played in a recreation basketball league for about five or six years,” Pat Bonner, a Shrewsbury resident and one of the league directors, explained. “Then when we added Red Bank last year, we called the league the Two River Recreation Basketball League.”

Makes sense. After all, the three adjoining towns sit between the Shrewsbury River and Navesink River in Monmouth County.

But the name of the league wasn’t the only thing to change. It went from a small, informal recreation program to a more organized and slightly more competitive basketball league.

“There were no playoffs or championships before last year. We didn’t even keep standings,” Bonner pointed out. “We just played games between teams from Shrewsbury and Little Silver.

“Then we added Red Bank’s rec program to ours last year. They contacted us and asked if they could get in with us. After we combined, we thought it would be a good idea to have playoffs in every division. We felt now that we had three towns involved, let’s take it to another level.”

That’s what exactly what they did, too, beginning with the 2004 season and following suit this year. And with the addition of a third town, the league grew in size. This past season there were 31 teams in all: six in the girls fifth/sixth grade division and five in the seventh/eighth grade division, while the boys’ side of the league had 11 teams in the fifth/sixth grade division and nine more on the seventh and eighth grade level.

A further breakdown of the numbers shows 15 of the 31 teams are from Little Silver (five in the Boys Fifth/Sixth Grade Division, four each in the Girls 5/6 and Boys 7/8, and two in the Girls 7/8), while 13 teams are from Shrewsbury (five in the Boys 5/6, four in the Boys 7/8, and two each in the Girls 5/6 and 7/8).

Meanwhile, Red Bank had three teams, one in the Girls Seventh/Eighth Grade Division, and one each in the Boys 5/6 and 7/8 divisions.

“Red Bank just joined last year,” Bonner said. “This is only their second year in the league and they’re trying to build their program and get the word out. We really hope they add more teams as we go along.”

But while Red Bank had only three teams, one of them claimed a championship, the Red Bank Bulls, who captured top honors in the boys seventh/eighth grade division.

In fact, the Bulls were the only team in any of the four divisions to go undefeated the entire season. They finished 8-0 during the regular season, and then won three more games in the playoffs, including an impressive 63-32 triumph over the Little Silver Mavericks in Sunday’s final.

“This was the second year Red Bank had a champion,” Bonner noted. “Their girls seventh and eighth grade team won the championship last year, and now this year their boys seventh and eighth grade team went undefeated and won.”

And with two championship teams from Red Bank in its first two years, league officials hope it helps create even more interest from that town.

“We hope it does,” Bonner agreed. “We hope more kids come out from Red Bank and they can add a few more teams. Who knows, as we go forward the next couple of years, maybe we can get some other towns to join. The bigger we make the league, the better it will be.”

Of course, the league is already pretty big and pretty good. Play in all four divisions begins right after New Year’s and continues throughout January and February. Games are played all different nights of the week and on Saturdays at one of three locations — the Shrewsbury Boro School, Markham Place School in Little Silver, and Red Bank Middle School. Sometimes they even use more than one gym at a time.

But regardless of what gym is being used, every boy and girl in the league can count on one thing: Playing. And plenty of it.

“What I really like is we have equal playing time in our league,” Bonner said. “Every kid plays the same number of minutes as every other kid, and every kid sits the same number of minutes. Everybody who signs up gets to contribute. “Some leagues have rules where everyone has to play a minimum of one quarter. You can still keep your one or two star players in the whole game,” he added.

“But in our league it’s equal. Everybody plays and sits the same amount as everyone else.”

Which involves some quick sideline calculations by the league’s 31 head coaches, who, along with their assistants, are constantly teaching the game of basketball.

“The coaches in all three towns are all parent volunteers, and they do a fantastic job, they really, really do,” Bonner said. “They all volunteer their time and they bring a lot of passion and a lot of energy. This league could not run without the parent volunteers. They deserve all the credit.

“What’s great, too, is they’re all people who are pressed for time in their lives. But they step up and give their time for the kids.”

That would also include Bonner himself, who runs the Shrewsbury division, while Julia Curtis and Marc Policastro team up in Little Silver, and Tomoro Young heads the Red Bank contingent.

“There’s no one commissioner,” Bonner pointed out. “We all share the responsibilities of running the league.”

Besides being one of the league directors, however, Bonner, a New York lawyer, also finds time to coach his 12-year-old daughter Catie’s team, the Shrewsbury Sting, who beat the Shrewsbury Lady Bugs 19-15 on March 6 to win the Girls Seventh and Eighth Grade Division crown.

Meanwhile, the Shrewsbury Liberty edged the Shrewsbury Sharks 19-14 to capture the Girls 5/6 Division, and, in the highest-scoring game of the day, the Little Silver Jaspers nipped the Shrewsbury Hawks 53-48 to win the Boys 5/6 Division title. The Red Bank Bulls in the Boys 7/8 Division completed this year’s title winners.

“Every town had a champion, which was nice,” Bonner said.

It was only fitting, too, that three of the four championship games went down to the wire to culminate an exciting week of playoffs.

“We had four games go into overtime and five other games go down to the last one or two minutes,” Bonner noted.

And just like the NCAA in March, there were some stunning upsets. In the Girls 5/6 Division, the Shrewsbury Liberty, 4-5 during the regular season and seeded fourth, knocked off the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds en route to the title. In the Girls 7/8, Bonner’s Shrewsbury Sting team, 5-4 and seeded No. 2, upset the Lady Bugs, who were 10-0 going into the finals.

In the Boys 5/6 Division, the Red Bank Eagles, seeded 11th in the 11-team league, beat the No. 8 seed in the first round, while the No. 9 Shrewsbury Blaze upset the top-seeded Little Silver Crusaders in the second round. The Red Bank Bulls in the Boys 7/8 Division was the only No. 1 seed to win a title.

The playoffs didn’t go off without a hitch, though.

“We drew up the whole playoff schedule for all 31 teams,” Bonner said. “But then the snow came in and they shut down the schools, which meant we couldn’t play. So we had to sit down and make up a new schedule. We had to re-schedule all 31 teams.”

“It was a lot of work, but we got all the games in.”

After the games, championship trophies were presented to members of the four winning teams while medals went to players on the four runner-up squads.

“Everyone came away with something today,” Bonner said. “The league has been a little more competitive the last two years since we added the playoffs, but because we’re a recreation league we’re not as competitive as a travel team or a school team. But from a recreational standpoint, I think we’ve given the league a more competitive feel to it, which is good for the kids.

“What I really like is that some kids who play in this league probably won’t ever play for a travel team or a school team or play in high school,” he added. “But at least in this league they get to play for something. They get a chance to play for a championship and play in the playoffs. I don’t see too many other leagues that provide that.”

And then there are some players who will go from the Two River Recreation Basketball League and eventually play in high school for either Red Bank Regional, Red Bank Catholic or Christian Brothers Academy.

In fact, the league, going back to its days when it was just Shrewsbury and Little Silver, has already seen some past graduates do just that.

“And some of our eighth grade players just finished their final year in the league and will now go on to high school,” Bonner said.

Bonner can certainly relate to that. A self-admitted basketball junkie, he played high school ball in Long Island and has never lost his passion for the game. That’s how he got started in this league to begin win. He is one of nine volunteer members on the Shrewsbury Boro Recreation Committee, each of whom oversee a different sport in the community. Bonner, naturally, assigned himself to his favorite sport.

“I’ve only been on the recreation committee for a year and a half,” he said.

“There are other people who have been there longer and do a lot of great things. They all work hard.”

Bonner’s passion for hoops carries over to the rest of his family, too.

Inaddition to his daughter Catie, his 13-year-old son Patrick plays for the Shrewsbury Rockets in the Boys 7/8 Division. Another daughter, Kelly, 8, is in third grade and plays in the town’s K-4 rec program, as does his youngest child, 5-year-old Brenna.

“We have clinics for the kids in kindergarten through second grade, then we consolidate the clinics with some games for the kids in third and fourth grades, and then we have the Two River League for kids in grades 5 through 8. It’s really a nice program,” Bonner said. “When you look at it comprehensibly, we teach skills and basic fundamentals in the beginning, then we weave in some games, and once they get to fifth through eighth grades they play competitive games.”

And after only two years under its new format, the Two River Recreation Basketball League has already made an impact on several hundred young lives.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Bonner concluded. “We want the kids to have a positive experience and to have fun. I think we did that this year.”