The field of 25 softball teams for the Shore Conference Tournament was announced Saturday night, marking the start of one of the most exciting times of the annual local preps sports calendar.
The tournament will begin with the first round on Tuesday and followed by the second round on Thursday. The ultimate destination is the final at Count Basie Park in Red Bank May 21. The top seven seeds in the tournament receive a bye into Thursday’s Round of 16.
There weren’t too many surprises with the seeding. St. John Vianney is the top seed after the Lancers rolled through the regular season dominating Shore foes. Two interesting notes were that recent Ocean County Tournament champ Southern just missed the cut off for a bye week as a nine-seed and Middletown North was rewarded for their gauntlet of a schedule with a 13-seed despite a 7-12 record.
Here are all the matchups with each team’s seed in the tournament in parenthesis.
Shore Conference Tournament
First Round – Tuesday, May 12
Toms River North (25) at Colts Neck (8)
St. Rose (24) at Southern (9)
Toms River South (23) at Raritan (10)
Howell (22) at Toms River East (11)
Ocean (21) at Central (12)
Pinelands (20) at Middletown North (13)
Matawan (19) at Freehold Township (14)
Jackson Township (18) at Shore Regional (15)
Freehold Borough (17) at Manalapan (16)
First Round byes
St. John Vianney (1)
Donovan Catholic (2)
Marlboro (3)
Middletown South (4)
Red Bank Catholic (5)
Holmdel (6)
Barnegat (7)
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: NJ Shore softball seeding and schedule for Shore Conference Tournament