Boys SCT Soccer – Manalapan Rallies Past Rumson for SCT Crown
NEPTUNE - Prior to the Shore Conference Tournament final Saturday night at Memorial Field in Neptune, the top-seeded Manalapan boys soccer team had not allowed a goal in its three tournament games. So when No. 3 Rumson-Fair Haven scored nine minutes into Saturday night’s championship match, it caught the Braves’ attention.
“We hadn’t let up a goal in the Shore Conference until then, and I think when they scored, that turned the switch on and it kind of knocked us into reality,” Braves junior forward Ryan Hammer said. “We had to wake up.”
Hammer helped wake Manalapan up with two goals to lead the charge and the Braves rallied for a 2-1 win over Rumson to win its first Shore Conference Tournament title since 2006 and third overall.
“It’s never the greatest thing to be down, but the whole season we’ve been a second half team,” Hammer said. “So we knew once we got the game tied, we were in good shape.”
Just as Manalapan responded to a one-goal deficit, so too did Rumson. The Bulldogs put the pressure on the Braves over the final 10 minutes and earned a golden opportunity to tie the game when senior forward Eamon Kitson drew a foul just inside the 18-yard box to set up a potential game-tying penalty kick.
Kitson stepped up for the penalty kick, but struck the ball wide of the frame to squash Rumson’s best threat to tie the game. The missed penalty kick was the second in as many games by the Bulldogs, who missed a chance to score in the third minute against Holmdel on Thursday when Hornets goalkeeper Tyler Marchiano saved Martin’s attempt.
“It’s obviously a heart-breaker when Kitson misses that (penalty kick),” first-year Rumson coach Will Gould said. “As far as (penalty kicks) go, we have a ton of guys who can take them and I just tell them that whoever wants to take it, whoever’s feeling confident you just tell me and I’ll let you have it. I trust every single one of them and I still do.”
I wasn’t really thinking,” Manalapan goalkeeper Ethan Siegel said. “I just tried to focus on the shot. I guessed right, but it missed anyway so it didn’t matter.”
Manalapan immediately took control of the game following Rumson senior Pete Martin’s goal to open the scoring in the ninth minute. The Braves put up three shots before Hammer finally broke through in the 23rd minute off a chip over the last line of defenders by junior Adam Weisberger. Hammer ran down the ball and beat Rumson goalkeeper Chris Tierney to the lower left of the net.
“I remember going back to when we played them in preseason that I had a little bit of speed on their center backs and defenders, so I tried to use that to my advantage,” Hammer said, referring to a 3-2 Rumson win over the Braves during the preseason. “The ball would get played through and at that point, it’s just a matter of trying to cut them off, get there, and go one-on-one with the goalie.”
The Braves continued to attack through the middle of the pitch over the next 40 minutes and took the lead on another through-ball to Hammer. Freshman Rocky Garretson, who scored the golden goal in overtime of Thursday’s win over Ocean in the semifinals, sent a pass on the ground to Hammer, who touched it past Tierney and tapped in the go-ahead score with 15:22 left.
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“I thought our guys played a lot better tonight,” Manalapan coach John Natoli said. “I saw at halftime that we had a lot of room in the midfield so I told them, ‘Try to hold the ball a little bit longer and keep the ball to make something happen,’ because they weren’t really getting numbers forward.”
Although Kitson’s penalty kick was Rumson’s best chance at an equalizer, it was not the last. Bulldogs senior Harry Gassert sent a cross from the corner across the box and Braves senior defender Brian Dolan headed the ball just over his own crossbar.
On the ensuing corner kick, Matt Dell headed Gassert’s service from the back post to the right post to an open Kieran Doherty. The senior midfielder settled the ball and took a shot on net, but Hammer threw his body in front of the point-blank shot and the ball bounded out of bounds.
Manalapan also had three near misses. The first came with Rumson still leading 1-0 and was a cross by junior Rob Pratka that Hammer made a sliding attempt at in front of the goal mouth, but missed wide. Hammer later sent a cross to sophomore midfielder Mitch Volis, who one timed the cross out of the air past Tierney, only to have Bulldogs senior defender Chris Drummond clear the ball away from the end-line.
“We knew right when Hammer scored that this was a game-changer,” Dolan said. “Even after Robbie crossed the ball right in front of the net, we were like ‘oh (wow), we can do that? Let’s keep doing that.’”
Tierney later did the denying with the game still tied at 1 in the 50th minute. Adam Weisberger headed a free kick Hammer on frame and Tierney pushed the ball over the crossbar to momentarily preserve the draw.
The Braves defense stepped up in front of Siegel after Martin’s goal and limited Rumson’s weapons. While the Braves start only five seniors, four of them – Siegel, Dolan, Brandon Garcia and Chris Colen – are on the defense. Sophomore Mike McNicholas also played a key role shadowing Kitson’s runs.
“We knew about a bunch of players like Petey in the middle and especially Eamon Kitson up top and we knew we had to deal with them,” Hammer said. “Mike McNicholas in the middle stepped and did a great job shutting him down.”
The seniors on the defense have been the anchor of an otherwise young team and Natoli and the younger players on the team have lauded the seniors for their leadership.
“The young guys are the future of the program and really, they are the now too,” Siegel said. “They already outnumber the seniors. If they hate us, then I don’t know who we’re going to play for. I guess we kinda gotta love them.”
“Not only are they teammates on the field, but they’re friends off the field,” Natoli said. “They want to play for each other, and that’s half the battle in high school soccer because they already have that chemistry. You don’t always get that either, when you have the talent but you can’t get them to jell and you fall short. But this year’s team has come together pretty well.”
Rumson-Fair Haven suffered just its second loss of the season and in each loss, the Bulldogs held a 1-0 lead. Rumson is the No. 2 seed in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group II playoffs that begin on Tuesday, with only Holmdel seeded above the Bulldogs. Rumson beat Holmdel in Thursday’s semifinal, 1-0, and has won two of the three meetings between the teams this year.
“I think this is going to be a blessing in the long run,” Gould said. “Our goal at the beginning of the year was to go far in the state tournament and even though this hurts right now, I know we’re going to be better because of this. We’ve played in a pressure-packed atmosphere, we’re going to learn from it and we’re going to come back stronger.”
Manalapan’s climb back to the top of the Shore Conference follows a 2012 season in which the Braves finished 5-10-3.
“Every year, coaches say ‘This is the team, we can do this,’ to try to hype you up,” Hammer said. “We never thought we’d be here this year, winning our division, winning Shore Conference. No, we didn’t envision this. Right from the beginning, you could see we were all friends, we clicked on an off the field and you could tell we were going to be friends and will be forever.”
“We’re playing like a family,” Siegel said. “That’s been our motto. If we weren’t a family before today, we definitely are now.”
Box Score
Manalapan 1, Rumson-Fair Haven 0
1 | 2 | F | |
| Rumson-Fair Haven (16-2-1) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Manalapan (17-2-1) | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Goals (Assists): (R) P. Martin (Kitson) 9’; (M) Hammer (Weisberger) 23’, Hammer (Garretson) 65’
Shots: Manalapan, 9-7
Saves: (R) Tierney 3; (M) Siegel 3
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