Neptune Girls Outlast Shore, 46-43

By Walter J. O’Neill, Jr.

Brittney Edgerson (13) , of Neptune fights for a rebound with Grace Ascolese (22), of Shore Regional.

The 2025 Blue Devil Christmas Tournament is this week with host Shore Regional facing Neptune on Sunday, December 28. It was a long and physical game with Neptune just edging out Shore 46-43.

The opening quarter was tight as Neptune took a 9-8 lead over the Devils. Leading Neptune in the first quarter were London Carey, sophomore guard, and Lana Ellington, junior guard, each scoring three points. Tyeera Howard, sophomore, had two points and Bryanna Edgerson, sophomore, made one of two foul shots.

Shore was led by freshman forward Sydney Tilton in the first quarter. She scored six of the Devils eight points. The other two were scored by Ava Coyle.

In the second quarter, Shore Regional took control with accurate shooting and quick transition. Coyle had three baskets and two foul shots for eight of the teams 15 points. Tilton added four points and Grace Asscolese, junior forward, hit a deep three-point bucket.

Neptune closed out the first half with 11 points. Carey had five, Edgerson scored three, Howard had two and Majiah Quarles had a foul shot. Going into the halftime break, Neptune was down 23-20.

John Brown, head coach of the Scarlet Fliers, was getting frustrated with the officiating. There were several times in the first half were the calls could have gone either way and times when calls should have been made. But those officiating woes were for both teams as Ryan Kulat, first head coach at Shore Regional, fell victim to the missed calls.

The start of the second half, Brown had his team apply an aggressive half court pressure. That resulted in several Blue Devil turnovers that Neptune capitalized on, and outscored Shore 16-6. “We broke the press several times, but then made mistakes. I told the girls that we could break it, but they needed to be consistent. We are a young team, making young mistakes,” said Kulat.

Shore Regional freshman forward Sydney Tilton (32) goes up for two of her game-high 14 in the 46-43 loss to Neptune.

The final eight minutes of the game actually took almost 15 minutes to play. There were fouls, and disagreements with the officials. Shore made an impressive comeback from that horrible third quarter, and if they had maybe two more minutes they could have won the game as they outscored Neptune 14-10, but fell four points short of a victory.

Leading the Scarlet Fliers was Howard, who had a double-double. She scored 15 points, had 16 rebounds, five steals, two assists and one block. Carey finished with 10 points and four rebounds. Quarles and Edgerson each had eight points and Ellington finished with five. The win gave Neptune a 2-0 start on the season.

Shore Regional fell to 1-4 on the season. They were led by senior Ava Coyle who also finished with a double-double. She scored 19 points and had 11 rebounds. She also assisted on two baskets and had one steal. Tilton finished with 14 points, six rebounds, six steals and two blocks. Ascolese, who is the outside sharpshooter, finished with nine points, one rebound, three assists and two steals. Scarlett Watson had one point, five rebounds and two steals. Emily Coyle, another starting freshman for Shore and younger sister to Ava, had four assists, three rebounds and two steals.

Additional photos will be found at www.Facebook.com/TheLinkSports