Got a note from former Mayor Dick Stryker about the Atlantic Highlands High School Basketball team of 1943 where all five key players shortly thereafter went to war and served all over the world.
Dick remembers when he attended those games with his dad. It also reminded him of the terrific 1948 State Champion Team he described as a great team made up of Atlantic and Highlands students who just played well together without even knowing what a regional school was. That team, and he was on it, took the school to another great season, and an upset win over the Sayreville Bombers in the annual classic, with a 48-39 victory that got them to the semi finals.
That team had some more pretty terrific members many remember today or know the next generation or two down….names like Phil Loori, Georger Hendricks, Donald Rockley, Eugene Murphy, Richard Shopharst, Ronald Carhart, Ken Hyneman and the two Mills boys. Along with one of the Monahans.
In that Bomber-Tiger clash, it was Hendricks who began the upset victory in the second period when, as the sports reporter said then, “he threw his pivot shots with his usual deadly accuracy. Then Monahan put the Tigers in the lead with a three pointer, followed by another two points by Loori. “Hendricks kept pouring them on,” the reporter said, and at the one minute mark at the game, the Tigers took the led with a one pointer that made the score 38-37. Then he scored again, making it 40-37. Then Monahan came back with another two points, the Bombers scored once, and Loori iced it for the Tigers and a final score of 43-39.
The Mills brothers, went on to college and became school principals. Spencer Keyes, another great name in all sports at Atlantic, also went on to college and became a superintendent in New York. All the team members, Stryker remembers, were justifiably proud of their accomplishments as a team, without equity or equality being a problem. The town turned out with a parade and a victory dinner at the Log Cabin Inn. Some memories……….
