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321spotlightnj2_2026-03-21-12-38-35

I'm excited to have these young men on Spotlight New Jersey this weekend. Daniel Junior, Jared, and Joseph Jennings all play for the Trojans at Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Edison. What is it like being on that team? You're all 3 years apart. How does that work out when you're out there on the court? Um, I think we just have a lot of chemistry together and I feel like we could work together pretty, pretty good on court. Yeah and all the games that we've started together and just like just like in the moment just seems crazy that like we're all brothers and all three of us are on the same court it just feels crazy to me. I bet it does. Yeah, uh, I just say it's just all the work we've put in together it's just all paying off and coming to like fruition I guess so we've played millions of pickup games with each other out at the park at the local gym, everything, so now we're getting to. Be able to put that into effect on a in a real game for our high school team it's pretty nice it's a good feeling. What is your work ethic like? Your dad, I wanna note Daniel senior played basketball at William Patterson University. Did he inspire you all? Um, I think he mostly inspired us by all of his accomplishments. Like in our living room we have a, uh, we have like a trophy case with all of our stuff, and we always see like his state championship at Long Branch in 1997 and also, um, his Division Three Final Four appearance in 1999. So I think that really just, uh, wants or it like it inspires us to, to be great. What do you all wanna say to him? We know he started a new job, so he's on his first day. What do you wanna say to him? Just thank you for everything you did for us like you're like the reason why we've come so far in basketball and uh grown as young men and everything. Wow, yeah, just uh a big thank you because it's definitely the reason it all started. Uh, the love for basketball in the first place, just, uh, he was just the first inspiration for all three of us. So all we can do is thank him. What kind of a record do you have at Saint Thomas Aquinas? Uh, it could have been better, but, um, uh, we played a really, we played a really tough schedule. So, um, I'd say for what we had, we, we made the best out of it. We also had a couple of injuries in the start of the year, so I think. It it started off rough, but then we also played a lot of tough teams and I think, I think we did the best we could. I'm, I'm definitely proud of everybody. We tried our best, so can't be mad at that.

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321spotlightnj3_2026-03-21-12-40-04

So this is just our introduction from the starting lineup, me and Jared. Uh, some season highlights from us. The beginning starts off with me. I, I'd say I had a pretty good season playing against some tough opponents. And you all wanna chime in with your brother? Uh, yeah, these are my highlights now. Um, I think I got way better and took a big step up in my career, uh, going from playing JV last year and now getting a starting spot on varsity and doing good. Um, just me, uh, playing as a freshman, I'm grateful for this, but it's really special to play with my two brothers. I bet it is. You are listening to Daniel Junior, Jared, and Joseph Jennings. They all play for the Trojans at Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Edison. We know that you were inspired to get into basketball by your dad, but your mom, she's a teacher at Menlo Park School. Tell us how she encouraged and inspired you with the academics. Um, so she always kept us to a high standard being student athletes, um. Like, just she, especially over summers she would put us in summer programs and have us do work over the summer just to stay to a high academic level and um just always uh for basically forcing us to have all A's um and making sure that always happened. Um, another thing is that, uh, she always like helps us with essays and projects and stuff, just always like checking it over and that builds like better habits for all of us. Uh, yeah, with, I'm in my senior year and it's coming to an end, so I had to go through the entire application process to college and she definitely helped me. It was on me about, uh, deadlines and writings and stuff, so it was definitely a great help and grateful that she's been here and has that job of being a teacher, so she knows the knows the system. Are you excited about going away to college? Yeah, definitely. Do you feel like you're going to miss what you're leaving behind? Uh, yeah, every once in a while I'll be like, dang, I'm gonna miss being at home or with my brothers and my family sometimes, but it's also good to be able to have a new experience. And at this point, do you know where you're going? Uh, no, not yet. All right, you just got your applications out there. Yes, yes. Good luck keeping your fingers crossed. Yeah, thank you. Do you all help each other when it comes to the academics and studying and all that? You were inducted into the Aquinas Honor pathway. Explain first of all what that is. Um, well, I joined it my sophomore year when I transferred in, and, um, basically it's the group, it's a group of the high achieving, um, students at Saint Thomas Aquinas, so being around, you're in, you're around those kids during class and you kind of follow around with them in a group all day. So being around those other smart kids, it keeps you accountable for your grades and your classwork, homework, everything. So it just builds better habits that definitely carry on to, you know, to carry on for me into college and just everything in life, so it's definitely a good experience.

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Jared, Joseph and Daniel Jennings Jr. joined News 12 to discuss their athletic journey.

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