Boys Soccer – Player/Coach of the Year

Shore Sports Network Boys Soccer Player of the Year

Ryan Hammer, Manalapan

Five years before he ever set foot inside Manalapan High School as a student, Ryan Hammer saw what it was like to win a championship as a bleach-blond Brave.

His older brother, Adam, was a senior defender on the 2006 Shore Conference Tournament championship team and NJSIAA Group IV runner up that beat Hunterdon Central in the Central Jersey Group IV final. After winning the Shore Conference Tournament title as a junior and experiencing a sectional title second-hand as a nine-year old, Hammer and his team had one goal in mind.

After a disappointing loss to Class A North rival Freehold Township in the Shore Conference Tournament semifinals, Manalapan rebounded by winning the Central Jersey Group IV championship for the first time since 2007, when the Braves repeated as champions following the 2006 championship that Hammer watched his brother win.

With 20 goals and 10 assists on the season and four goals during Manalapan’s four Central Jersey Group IV victories, Hammer is the 2014 Shore Sports Network Player of the year.

Hammer notched two hat tricks this season and stormed out of the gate with 11 goals in Manalapan’s first five games and 13 in its first eight. After a two-goal game against Howell on Oct. 2, Hammer scored just one goal over the next seven games, during which Manalapan went 3-2-2 with its first two losses of the year.

The start of Manalapan’s postseason marked the end of Hammer’s slump, as the senior scored two goals in a 2-0 win over Toms River East in Manalapan’s first Shore Conference Tournament game. That would cap his goal output for the SCT, but Hammer went back to work in the Central Jersey Group IV playoffs. He scored two goals in a 7-1, first-round rout of Freehold Borough and scored a goal each in wins over Brick Memorial and Hunterdon Central.

A three-year starter, Hammer finished his career with 33 goals and 20 assists to go with a Shore Conference Tournament and NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV titles.

Shore Sports Network Boys Soccer Coach of the Year

Christian Pontier, Shore

As both a player and an assistant coach, Christian Pontier has come close to winning a tournament championship and in his relatively short time as a head coach of the Shore Regional boys soccer team, “close” has remained the operative word.

In 2014, the magic word was, finally, “champion.”

After flexing its muscles in the Shore Conference’s small-school division for years, the Blue Devils won a school record 22 games and won their first NJSIAA Central Jersey Group I final since 1998. With his team finally clearing the state sectional championship hurdle for the first time during his five-year tenure, Pontier is the 2014 Shore Sports Network Coach of the Year.

In his first four seasons at the helm, Pontier – a former standout at Lacey in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s – guided Shore to two Class B Central division championships, both of which the Blue Devils won by going unbeaten in division play. During an injury-riddled 2013 campaign, Shore failed to win a third straight title and this year’s senior class suffered its only three defeats within Class B Central. In total, the 2015 graduating class of Shore boys soccer players went 44-3-1 against B Central competition.

With a baseline of success against its division, the Blue Devils have looked toward the Shore Conference Tournament and NJSIAA Tournaments as their proving ground. Against Shore Conference teams outside of Class B Central, Shore went 4-1, losing only a road Shore Conference Tournament game to Wall by a 2-1 score. In fact, Shore’s three losses this season came to the Shore Conference Tournament runner-up (Wall), the Group I runner-up (Haddon Township) and the Group III champion (South Plainfield).

Following a convincing trio of wins to open the Central Jersey Group I bracket, the Blue Devils outlasted defending sectional champion New Egypt in West Long Branch to end the 16-year championship drought.