Finals schedule; Tuesday Recap Pt. II
Thursday
Non Public A South
No. 3 Gloucester Catholic vs. No. 4 CBA, 5 p.m. at Eastern H.S.
Friday
CJ IV
No. 6 Manalapan at No. 4 Howell, 1 p.m. (On the Field Hockey Field)
CJ III
No. 12 West Windsor North at No. 3 Red Bank, 2 p.m.
CJ II
No. 8 Shore at No. 2 Somerville, 1 p.m. at White Oak Park in Branchburg
SJ I
No. 7 Point Beach at No. 4 A.P. Schalick, 1 p.m.
The links are directions to the away sites.
CBA beats St. Auggies again
We're back on the subject of Tuesday's games and we'll start with CBA beating St. Augustine for the second straight year. Andrew Liapis has had one of the more underrated years in the Shore Conference with 12 goals and eight assists, including the two goals to beat the Hermits on Tuesday. CBA has had goal-scoring from a lot of different sources, with guys like Liapis, Matt LaMura, Chris Mergenthaler, and Jim Lannon all with similar goal-scoring numbers, but Liapis has emerged as their go-to-guy. He had a bit of a lull in the midddle of the year, but he's been finishing lately after showing a lot of promise in the early stages of the year.
Whatever CBA keeps finding in the St. Augustine defense, they attack it quickly. Last year, the Colts scored two goals within about a minute of each other to come back late and beat St. Auggies 2-1. While CBA didn't have to come back to beat the Hermits this time around, they beat them with two goals that essentially came within two minutes of one another. Even though they have played down to their competition at times, CBA has had a knack for the big goal, which has to bode well for them.
Red Bank back in Sects. for first time since 2000
The 5-1 score by which Red Bank beats looks ugly for Ocean, but it was more the result of an ugly field according to my colleague Rob Ziegler, who covered the game for us. Will MacLonie's goal that put Red Bank up 3-1 came as a result of Ocean goalie Lucas Rhoads losing his footing on a long boot by MacLonie. Despite the break, Red Bank's senior talent came through like it has all year. Marty Stern and Rob Child are a lot to handle and should they get past West Windsor North, I'm interested to see how they match-up against Ocean City, which has been one of the best Group III schools in the state over the past few years. I thought Ocean had a good shot in this one, but the Bucs had way too much talent for the Spartans.
So Red Bank is in their first CJ III finals since 2000 when they lost, fittingly enough, to Ocean. The Bucs might have put some ghosts to rest with Tuesday's win, but the goal is to win that first ever Group III sectional title, not just to get there.
Point Beach reaches third straight sectional final
It's been a simple formula for the Gulls: control the ball, keep the opposition off the board, and find a goal somewhere. Henry Stuhler scored in the 72nd and the defense with keeper P.J. Seggel shut down Woodbury to get the Gulls another win after shutting out New Egypt in the first round.
The Garnet Gulls have flown under the radar in this state tournament for a few reasons. First of all, they play in a very small South Jersey Group I; second, they don't have any other Shore teams with them in the section like Rumson/Shore/Manasquan, Howell/Manalapan, the Toms River Schools, CBA/Monsignor Donovan, or the slew of CJ III teams; and third, their road games have been progressively further away from the area, with New Egypt first, Woodbury second, and A.P. Schalick Friday. A lot of the teams in the bracket are basically in Delaware, including Schalick, so Beach has to deal with some long bus rides. But playing these deep South Jersey teams does as much good for them as it hurts them because the Gulls play bigger schools during the course of the season than a lot of these teams. So for the third straight year, the Gulls have a nice team in Class B Central and turn it on in the SJ I playoffs.
It's been real...
While six teams made it to their respective sectional finals, six teams saw their seasons come to an end.
Neptune: This was the most surprising one to me, although based on the review I did of their schedule, it shouldn't have been. Neptune has not had good results against teams it is unfamiliar with and WWPN was a new team. In the Fliers defense, they outplayed the Knights for most of the game, but gave up two late goals to the same player. This team will be remembered as a streaky group with some eye-opening performances, for better or worse. They lost a tough one to WWPN, but handing Princeton its only loss of the year after the Tigers beat them 5-0 last year will be the season-defining moment for a talented, senior-heavy team.
TR East: While I thought Lenape might win, I also thought the Raiders would have a better showing. Toms River East has looked great at times, but they've also had some games early in the year (Brick, TR North) and late (TR South, Lacey) in which they just didn't play well. As I said before, I thought they looked very good against Marlboro, but finishing has been the issue all year long and there wasn't enough of it against Lenape. They also have some growing up to do at GK with sophomore Tom Iorio, who had his moments and should be pretty good for them going forward. All things considered, the Raiders were who we thought they were, to quote Dennis Green. They lost a lot of seniors 2006 to this year, but still had enough talent to be a strong A South and SJ IV team. It turns out, they were just that and maybe a little better.
TR North: Coach Dave Mitchell acknowledged that the better team won in his team's 1-0 defeat at the hands of top-seeded Washington Twp., but that's not the only factor that decided the game. The Mariners were already missing Todd Webb in the midfield, but lost Nick Crenshaw and Todd Webb to concusions during the course of this game, according to Mitchell. Injuries have killed this team all year, and while you can't just point to injuries as the reason for some disappointments over the course of the season, it's hard to beat a No. 1 seed in a Group IV section while missing three starters. Mitchell even said that by the middle part of the second half, they were just playing to protect the net and get to penalty kicks.
The M's never really had a chance to mix the seniors and the sophomores because of all the injuries, but the two-game SJ IV winning streak and a hard-fought loss was a nice way to end the careers of the seniors and a nice checkpoint heading into next year's junior-heavy team.
Monsignor Donovan: The Griffins wrap up a really tough day for Toms River with a 1-0 loss to Gloucester Catholic. I wondered whether the B South schedule was going to hurt the Griffins at some point in the SCT or State Tournament, but I don't think that's what happened here. Maybe if they lost decisively or even to CBA, then you could conclude the schedule hurt them, but B South was pretty solid this year, and Donovan played their game Tuesday and just happen to lose a 1-0 game. That's part of the game. From what I heard and read, they had some chances to get on the board, hit some posts, and gave up a goal on a kick-and-run play that they had sniffed out for the rest of the game. It's a tough loss to swallow after a really strong year, especially since they would have had a chance to go through their own Conference's parochial powerhouse to get a Non Public A South title.
It's hard to say whether Mon Don fulfilled its potential by recording an 18-4 record and a trip to the SCT quarters, or whether the Griffins fell short of expectations with a one-and-done in states and coming up a game short of the SCT final four. I had them pegged as the No. 10 team preseason, and they're going to be 6 or 7 to end the year, so in my eyes, they had a great year.
Manasquan: Somerville was a tough draw for the Warriors, but they played the game they wanted to play. They go out in the sectional semis for the second straight year after making it to the finals in 2005, but coach Mark Levy seemed especially at peace with this team because they managed to find some consistency before the state tournament. In the last two years, Manasquan was the 12 seed last year and 11 seed two years ago and this year drew the No. 3 on the strength of a much improved regular season. As they proved with deep runs when they were high seeds, anything can happen in the state tourney, and it just didn't happen this year. Seniors Andy Pinnella, Zach Groezinger, Ben Tumas, and Taylor Weiss will be hard to replace, but they've done their part in putting the soccer program on the Shore Conference map.
Ocean: It looked like Ocean was going to turn a rollercoaster season into another sectional title, but instead they went out with another puzzling performace. Ocean had a lot of talent to replace from last year's squad, but coach Tom Reilly had some pieces in place to do his usual strong job. But injuries made it hard for the Spartans to develop an identity, and while they had some big wins over Rumson and Monmouth, they couldn't put enough wins together at any point this year. Ben Lowy is an All-Shore caliber defender and headed to Monmouth next year, but there are some young pieces in place to work with going forward. Look for Ocean to be a little bit better from start to finish next year.
I'll have a look at CBA's game first and then the other five games a little later.
Non Public A South
No. 3 Gloucester Catholic vs. No. 4 CBA, 5 p.m. at Eastern H.S.
Friday
CJ IV
No. 6 Manalapan at No. 4 Howell, 1 p.m. (On the Field Hockey Field)
CJ III
No. 12 West Windsor North at No. 3 Red Bank, 2 p.m.
CJ II
No. 8 Shore at No. 2 Somerville, 1 p.m. at White Oak Park in Branchburg
SJ I
No. 7 Point Beach at No. 4 A.P. Schalick, 1 p.m.
The links are directions to the away sites.
CBA beats St. Auggies again
We're back on the subject of Tuesday's games and we'll start with CBA beating St. Augustine for the second straight year. Andrew Liapis has had one of the more underrated years in the Shore Conference with 12 goals and eight assists, including the two goals to beat the Hermits on Tuesday. CBA has had goal-scoring from a lot of different sources, with guys like Liapis, Matt LaMura, Chris Mergenthaler, and Jim Lannon all with similar goal-scoring numbers, but Liapis has emerged as their go-to-guy. He had a bit of a lull in the midddle of the year, but he's been finishing lately after showing a lot of promise in the early stages of the year.
Whatever CBA keeps finding in the St. Augustine defense, they attack it quickly. Last year, the Colts scored two goals within about a minute of each other to come back late and beat St. Auggies 2-1. While CBA didn't have to come back to beat the Hermits this time around, they beat them with two goals that essentially came within two minutes of one another. Even though they have played down to their competition at times, CBA has had a knack for the big goal, which has to bode well for them.
Red Bank back in Sects. for first time since 2000
The 5-1 score by which Red Bank beats looks ugly for Ocean, but it was more the result of an ugly field according to my colleague Rob Ziegler, who covered the game for us. Will MacLonie's goal that put Red Bank up 3-1 came as a result of Ocean goalie Lucas Rhoads losing his footing on a long boot by MacLonie. Despite the break, Red Bank's senior talent came through like it has all year. Marty Stern and Rob Child are a lot to handle and should they get past West Windsor North, I'm interested to see how they match-up against Ocean City, which has been one of the best Group III schools in the state over the past few years. I thought Ocean had a good shot in this one, but the Bucs had way too much talent for the Spartans.
So Red Bank is in their first CJ III finals since 2000 when they lost, fittingly enough, to Ocean. The Bucs might have put some ghosts to rest with Tuesday's win, but the goal is to win that first ever Group III sectional title, not just to get there.
Point Beach reaches third straight sectional final
It's been a simple formula for the Gulls: control the ball, keep the opposition off the board, and find a goal somewhere. Henry Stuhler scored in the 72nd and the defense with keeper P.J. Seggel shut down Woodbury to get the Gulls another win after shutting out New Egypt in the first round.
The Garnet Gulls have flown under the radar in this state tournament for a few reasons. First of all, they play in a very small South Jersey Group I; second, they don't have any other Shore teams with them in the section like Rumson/Shore/Manasquan, Howell/Manalapan, the Toms River Schools, CBA/Monsignor Donovan, or the slew of CJ III teams; and third, their road games have been progressively further away from the area, with New Egypt first, Woodbury second, and A.P. Schalick Friday. A lot of the teams in the bracket are basically in Delaware, including Schalick, so Beach has to deal with some long bus rides. But playing these deep South Jersey teams does as much good for them as it hurts them because the Gulls play bigger schools during the course of the season than a lot of these teams. So for the third straight year, the Gulls have a nice team in Class B Central and turn it on in the SJ I playoffs.
It's been real...
While six teams made it to their respective sectional finals, six teams saw their seasons come to an end.
Neptune: This was the most surprising one to me, although based on the review I did of their schedule, it shouldn't have been. Neptune has not had good results against teams it is unfamiliar with and WWPN was a new team. In the Fliers defense, they outplayed the Knights for most of the game, but gave up two late goals to the same player. This team will be remembered as a streaky group with some eye-opening performances, for better or worse. They lost a tough one to WWPN, but handing Princeton its only loss of the year after the Tigers beat them 5-0 last year will be the season-defining moment for a talented, senior-heavy team.
TR East: While I thought Lenape might win, I also thought the Raiders would have a better showing. Toms River East has looked great at times, but they've also had some games early in the year (Brick, TR North) and late (TR South, Lacey) in which they just didn't play well. As I said before, I thought they looked very good against Marlboro, but finishing has been the issue all year long and there wasn't enough of it against Lenape. They also have some growing up to do at GK with sophomore Tom Iorio, who had his moments and should be pretty good for them going forward. All things considered, the Raiders were who we thought they were, to quote Dennis Green. They lost a lot of seniors 2006 to this year, but still had enough talent to be a strong A South and SJ IV team. It turns out, they were just that and maybe a little better.
TR North: Coach Dave Mitchell acknowledged that the better team won in his team's 1-0 defeat at the hands of top-seeded Washington Twp., but that's not the only factor that decided the game. The Mariners were already missing Todd Webb in the midfield, but lost Nick Crenshaw and Todd Webb to concusions during the course of this game, according to Mitchell. Injuries have killed this team all year, and while you can't just point to injuries as the reason for some disappointments over the course of the season, it's hard to beat a No. 1 seed in a Group IV section while missing three starters. Mitchell even said that by the middle part of the second half, they were just playing to protect the net and get to penalty kicks.
The M's never really had a chance to mix the seniors and the sophomores because of all the injuries, but the two-game SJ IV winning streak and a hard-fought loss was a nice way to end the careers of the seniors and a nice checkpoint heading into next year's junior-heavy team.
Monsignor Donovan: The Griffins wrap up a really tough day for Toms River with a 1-0 loss to Gloucester Catholic. I wondered whether the B South schedule was going to hurt the Griffins at some point in the SCT or State Tournament, but I don't think that's what happened here. Maybe if they lost decisively or even to CBA, then you could conclude the schedule hurt them, but B South was pretty solid this year, and Donovan played their game Tuesday and just happen to lose a 1-0 game. That's part of the game. From what I heard and read, they had some chances to get on the board, hit some posts, and gave up a goal on a kick-and-run play that they had sniffed out for the rest of the game. It's a tough loss to swallow after a really strong year, especially since they would have had a chance to go through their own Conference's parochial powerhouse to get a Non Public A South title.
It's hard to say whether Mon Don fulfilled its potential by recording an 18-4 record and a trip to the SCT quarters, or whether the Griffins fell short of expectations with a one-and-done in states and coming up a game short of the SCT final four. I had them pegged as the No. 10 team preseason, and they're going to be 6 or 7 to end the year, so in my eyes, they had a great year.
Manasquan: Somerville was a tough draw for the Warriors, but they played the game they wanted to play. They go out in the sectional semis for the second straight year after making it to the finals in 2005, but coach Mark Levy seemed especially at peace with this team because they managed to find some consistency before the state tournament. In the last two years, Manasquan was the 12 seed last year and 11 seed two years ago and this year drew the No. 3 on the strength of a much improved regular season. As they proved with deep runs when they were high seeds, anything can happen in the state tourney, and it just didn't happen this year. Seniors Andy Pinnella, Zach Groezinger, Ben Tumas, and Taylor Weiss will be hard to replace, but they've done their part in putting the soccer program on the Shore Conference map.
Ocean: It looked like Ocean was going to turn a rollercoaster season into another sectional title, but instead they went out with another puzzling performace. Ocean had a lot of talent to replace from last year's squad, but coach Tom Reilly had some pieces in place to do his usual strong job. But injuries made it hard for the Spartans to develop an identity, and while they had some big wins over Rumson and Monmouth, they couldn't put enough wins together at any point this year. Ben Lowy is an All-Shore caliber defender and headed to Monmouth next year, but there are some young pieces in place to work with going forward. Look for Ocean to be a little bit better from start to finish next year.
I'll have a look at CBA's game first and then the other five games a little later.
posted by Matt Manley at 3:08 PM
12 Comments:
cba's game is at 5
let's be honest...good field or not RBR was way too much for Ocean to handle (which btw, the goalie didn't slip so much as Lowy headed it back when then goalie called for him to leave it). Stern and Childs were too much to handle for Ocean. Could have easily been more if not for a few posts and some unlucky play.
Manasquan will also miss Moises Ininguez, a young, solid senior that scored the two goals to get Manasquan to the semi's this year.
Best luck to all the boys as they move ahead.
CBA game is indeed at 5, so sorry about that. I'm covering a girls game at two, then going to the CBA game. I gave you my schedule instead of CBA's.
Hey Matt,
If Manalapan or Howell played Shore, what would be your predicted score?
6-0 shore loss
6-0 shore loss
Maybe they will play Shore and you can find out- If Howell plays Colts neck what would the score be? Maybe a lose. R u A jerk or what
Not sure what the score would be, but shots on goal would be something like 27 -5. Little touchy Shore. Good luck, but please give this forum a rest. You've overstayed your welcome.
You can have forum we will be playing on the field- Thanks for kind words
definitely a tough loss for Mon Don, dominated throughout the whole game, yet fell short. I feel bad for them. they definitely should have been in the A South finals with CBA
why was nothing posted about the Colts Neck Freshman team who tied with Wall for the title of Central Champs?
Post a Comment
<< Home