It has been said that the New Jersey’s Shore Conference is one of the best conferences in the country for girl’s high school basketball and the St. Rose Girls Varsity Team are climbing the ranks and are headed to the Shore Conference Finals on Saturday, February 25th at Monmouth University. They will be versing St. John Vianney’s Lady Lancers who won a hard fought game against the Red Bank Catholic Caseys in the Semifinals. The Purple Roses and the Lady Lancers have some history, two years ago they met in Tournament of Champions semifinals where the Purple Roses prevailed on (then) freshman Mikayla Markham’s buzzer beater three pointer; last year SJV got the victory when they met in the shore conference tournament. As we anticipate this exciting match-up between the two talented teams we cannot forget the teams St. Rose defeated on their way.

Fifth seeded St. Rose received a bye in the first round of the tournament and breezed by Marlboro High school in the second round with a commanding score of 72-30. In the quarterfinals the Roses beat the Bulldogs of Rumson Fair Haven by 14 points, Tori Hyduke of RFH was the leading scorer of the game with 28 points and Lovin Marsicano of St. Rose was in close second with 20 points. St. Rose went into the only overtime game in the Shore Conference Tournament this year when they played their rival school Manasquan; their first meeting was one of the best games of the year and this one was no different. St. Rose defeated the Manasquan Warriors by 9 points the final score being 68-59.

“We are really excited to be back in the shore conference finals and excited to play St. John Vianney,” Co- Captain Mikayla Markham reported before their last practice going into the weekend. “We worked hard all spring, summer, and fall in preparation for this game; we arrived early and stayed late and we know we can bring home the trophy!”

By: Alex Pendergrass ’17, Staff Writer