While the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten went just 14-13 in the past week, leading to additional volatility in the rankings, Immaculata remains at No. 1 for a fourth straight week, a position it's held this year for all but the preseason list. It was also a bit of a light week, with many games rained out on Saturday.

With only one Central Jersey Sports Radio-area team on the baseball schedule this Sunday, a rainy one at that, it's time to take our first look at the power point standings in New Jersey, with the cutoff date of May 17 exactly three weeks away. And there are two publics and two non-publics who are on the right track for top seeds in their respective sections.

For a second straight week, the top four teams continued to win - leaving Immaculata, Ridge, Middlesex and Edison right where they've been - but everyone else keeps beating each other up, and two new teams join the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten for Week Three. Immaculata (7-2) remains in the No. 1 position after a 2-1 week. In Skyland Conference play, the Spartans swept Bridgewater-Raritan - 13-3 at home, and 5-2 on the road - Tuesday and Thursday, before falling 7-3 to Delsea in a non-conference game on Saturday.

Basketball is a team sport, but without Ethan Lin, it's highly likely Montgomery isn't Central Jersey Group 4 champions three years running. The smart, skilled, and unflappable point guard was the Central Jersey Sports Radio Somerset County Boys' Basketball Player of the Year in 2024-25, and now he's repeated the feat in 2025-26. Last season, he was coming off a horiffic broken leg injury that truncated his sophomore season.

When high school basketball teams open their preseason, hitting the gym in earnest for the first time, they can set all kinds of different goals. For most with high-end aspirations, there are four main ones: win the division, win the county, win a sectional, win a state championship. In 2025-26, it was check, check, check, and check one more time for…

Sure, the Rutgers Prep girls' basketball team won 20 games last year, but it still wasn't up to Mary Klinger's standards. The coach calls the regular season the "preseason." A division title is nice, but the county and state tournaments are the goals. Win those, and it's a good year for the Argonauts. In 2025, they won neither. But this year, with much of the same crew back, the Argonauts returned to their familiar spot as Somerset County Tournament champions, and finish the year No.

Typically, the NJSIAA has its sites chosen for neutral site state tournament games well in advance. And the championship games for the same sections are placed at the same venues, that way one school doesn't have its boys' and girls' teams playing at the same time at different locations. But one thing has been an issue among schools in the "south" half of the state, at least according to NJSIAA geography: travel.

As Meatloaf once sang, "Two out of three ain't bad." Gill St. Bernard's and St. Joseph-Metuchen won their sectional semifinals Thursday night in the state tournament, the Knights in North B and the Falcons in South A, and now both are headed opposite directions in the state Monday for sectional title games. Meanwhile, Rutgers Prep was upset at home by Bishop Eustace in the Non-Public South B semifinals.

After a light Wednesday, it was a busy Thursday for girls basketball in the NJSIAA state tournament, highlighted by Franklin's win over Hillsborough in the Central Jersey Group 4 title game. The Warriors won their first title since 2020 and ended Hillsborough's two-year run as sectional champions, with one in North 2, Group 4 in 2024 - the school's first ever - and another last season in Central Jersey Group 4.

No matter how many finals they make, or championships they win, it never gets old for Rutgers Prep head coach Mary Klinger. The top-seeded Argonauts easily won their Non-Public South B semifinal game Thursday night in Somerset, defeating fifth-seed Stuart Day, 79-46. Another laugher from the start, Prep led 24-9 after one quarter and 42-16 at the half, with many outstanding performances throughout.

It was a 6-4 Monday night for the ten boys' basketball teams fromthe Central Jersey Sports Radio coverage area in action in the NJSIAA high school basketball tournament. Colonia and South Plainfield both moved on to sectional semifinal play in separate sides of the bracket in North Jersey, Section 2, Group 3, while Manville overcame a big second-half deficit to surge past stunned Middlesex in Central Jersey Group 1.

As Week Two of the NJSIAA state high school basketball tournament gets underway, six area girls' basketball teams advanced to sectional semifinals with wins on Monday night. That includes top-seed Somerville in North Jersey, Section 2, Group 3 and second-seed Bound Brook in Central Jersey Group 1. Meanwhile, all four parochial schools in action - Pingry, St. Thomas Aquinas, Gill St.

Junior Jahmal Dixon had a game- and career-high 25 points, while Connor Junker added 20 and Dorsett Mulcahy 18 to lead top-seed Gill St. Bernard's to an 84-73 victory over second-seed Rutgers Prep to claim its tenth Somerset County Tournament title, tying Bridgewater-Raritan's record for all-time tourney wins. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Chris Tsakonas call all the play-by-play from Montgomery Township High School inn Skillman on February 21, 2026.

Hailey Benbow had a game-high 32 points - including four three-pointers - while senior Ava LaMonica added 11 and got her third county championship in three tries as top-seed Rutgers Prep downed third-seed Franklin 55-37 to win its eleventh overall Somerset County Championship. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Chris Tsakonas call all the play-by-play from Montgomery Township High School inn Skillman on February 21, 2026.

The Bridgewater-Raritan boys' basketball team has held the record for most Somerset County titles for more than a quarter century, all by themselves. Their fourth title came in 1998, putting them ahead of Franklin, and then won six more through 2007. But as of Saturday afternoon, they have some company. Gill St. Bernard's won its 10th Somerset County Tournament championship Saturday at Montgomery Twp.

The Rutgers Prep girls basketball team could just about do no wrong Saturday afternoon. The top-seeded Argonauts were tied 4-4 early on with a very good second-seeded Franklin team, and the Lady Warriors led 2-0, but 4-4 was as close as they would get, and Rutgers Prep pulled away for a 55-37 win in the Somerset County Tournament championship down at Montgomery Twp.

Was the 2024-25 season a blip for Rutgers Prep girls basketball? Merely a speed bump in what has been a brilliant run for Mary Klinger's program over the last 20-plus years? It sure looks like it. The Argonauts had won four straight titles before bowing out in last year's semifinals to Hillsborough. And while the Raiders eventually won the state Group 4 championship, that didn't take away the pain and heartache.

The NJSIAA has announced its playoff pairings for the 2026 girls' basketball state tournament, with the seeding taking place down in Robbinsville Tuesday morning, and four teams from the Central Jersey Sports Radio coverage area earned top seeds. Among the publics, fresh off an upset of second-seed and defending champion Gill St. Bernard's in Saturday's Somerset County Tournament semifinals, Franklin got the top seed in Central Jersey Group 4, while Somerville earned the No.

The NJSIAA has announced its playoff pairings for the 2026 boys' basketball state tournament, with the seeding taking place down in Robbinsville Tuesday morning, and five Central Jersey Sports Radio area teams got top seeds. Among the publics, Hillsborough earned the No. 1 seed in Central Jersey Group 4, which Montgomery has won the last two seasons. The Cougars got the third seed based on the state's power points formula, despite beating Hillsborough twice this season.

Top-seed Rutgers Prep got 11 points from Hailey Benbow and 10 from Natalia Valdez in a 55-49 win over fifth-seed Bound Brook in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals, sending them back to the title game. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Chris Tsakonas call all the play-by-play from Franklin High School in Somerset, NJ on February 14, 2026.

Second-seed Rutgers Prep held off a late push from third-seed Montgomery for a 66-57 win in the semifinal round of the Somerset County Tournament behind 20 points from Will Brunson and 15 from Nicholas Nsenkyrie. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Chris Tsakonas call all the play-by-play from Franklin High School in Somerset, NJ on February 14, 2026.

With playoff qualification in high school basketball closing Saturday at the NJSIAA cutoff, it looks like Gill St. Bernard's loss in the Somerset County Tournament Saturday will not keep them from getting a top seed in their playoff section, with Rutgers Prep also expected to earn one. Below is a look at all the area teams in the Central Jersey playoff brackets, based on NJ.com power point standings as of 2 pm on Sunday, February 15, 2026.

Sometimes when two top teams get together - and these two both were 20-game winners coming into Saturday's Somerset County Tournament semifinal at Franklin High School - there's a feeling out period. See what the other team gives you, then figure out what you can take. There was none of that, however, for top-seed Rutgers Prep when the Argonauts took on fifth-seed Bound Brook.

Montgomery's last win over Rutgers Prep in boys' basketball came in the 2018-19 season, with the Cougars winning twice that year. Since then, the Argonauts have won ten straight, but the majority - especially in recent seasons - have been close, including a three-point loss in the 2024 Somerset County Tournament final. This Saturday, the second-seeded Argonauts (15-8, No. 9 in New Jersey) and the third-seeded Cougars (20-3, No.

By no stretch of the imagination did the Rutgers Prep and Bound Brook girls' basketball teams have "bad" years, or even so-so seasons, at least not by most people's standards. The Argonauts finished 20-7, while the Crusaders went 19-7. But Rutgers Prep didn't make the county finals for the first time in ten seasons, and they got beat by Gloucester Catholic in the Non-Public South B Final.