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12 Seconds: Brady’s Quick Strike Sends CBA Soccer to Sectional Final

Matt Manley|November 11, 2025|Last Updated November 11, 2025

MIDDLETOWN — James Brady and his Christian Brothers Academy teammates proudly refer to themselves as a “second-half team,” and while Colts head coach Tom Mulligan shares that assessment, he admits getting tired of waiting around for the best version of his team to show itself.

After the second half of Monday’s NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public A semifinal against visiting St. Augustine finished with the two teams tied, Mulligan didn’t want his squad to waste any more time.

As it turned out, two minutes was longer than Brady and his fellow Colts wanted to wait.

Brady tracked down a long opening kick-off from fellow senior Finn McCarthy, surveyed the setting and curled a shot off the far left post and in for the golden goal 12 seconds into overtime as CBA — seeded No. 2 in the South Jersey Non-Public A bracket — outlasted St. Augustine, 2-1, in overtime to advance to the sectional final Thursday at top-seeded Pingry.

“It’s common consensus between both teams that those long balls go out of bounds to start the game,” Brady said. “That was a great ball from Finn, and I was able to run, work hard and get it. I’m glad it only took 12 seconds and not 20 minutes. It’s tiring out there.”

After losing in the sectional quarterfinal at home a year ago and failing to reach the sectional final round for the first time since 2013, CBA (16-2-4) is back in the championship round for the 11th time in 12 years. The Colts also completed a perfect season on their home pitch, going 9-0 at Dan Keane Field.

“The motivation of not winning the Shore Conference Tournament, losing in state last year, that definitely plays a big part of carrying us through games like this,” Brady said. “Going undefeated on this field our senior year, that’s a big accomplishment. We’d love to be playing here (on Thursday), but Pingry got the results, so they earned it. I’m looking forward to going there and seeing what we can do. I’m very confident.”

The game-winner was the team-leading 16th goal of the season for Brady, who took a backseat to classmate Will Drechsler, junior midfielder Justin Arias and senior defender Charlie Messano during CBA’s strong showing during the first 80 minutes, but showed up in the most crucial of moments for the Colts. After running down the long opening kick from McCarthy, Brady drove it at the goal, located junior John Little as an option at the mouth of the goal and then decided a left-footed shot from a difficult angle was the best play.

“Me and Ryan (Asadi) pressed the ball, and we saw their two center backs arguing,” Brady said. “It hits off the kid’s hand, so they were both out of position, so I took a touch in and I saw the keeper looking at John Little like I was going to cross it, so I just thought, ‘Why not curl it to the back post?’ and it went in. It didn’t feel real for a second. State semifinal, that quick, that’s just sick. It’s a big moment.”

“It was absolutely surreal, because coach (Mulligan) said to us, ‘Let’s get this handled two, three minutes in,” Drechsler said. “Finn plays an absolutely fabulous ball, James gets on the other end of it, and we’re all like ‘Square it to John!’ Then, he (Brady) has one of the best finishes I have seen all year. I didn’t even know what to do. I was running around. That was just an insane 12 seconds.”

The overtime theatrics came as a result of a seven-minute lull during an otherwise dominant period of regulation for CBA. The Colts held a 1-0 lead at halftime on a penalty kick by Drechsler and created two quality chances to score in the first 12 minutes of the second half that they missed converting by a matter of inches.

Fifty-five minutes into the match, CBA held a 5-0 advantage in total shots, but the the Hermits flipped the game over the ensuing seven minutes. St. Augustine (18-3-1) launched five shots during a seven-minute span, and the last of them was the equalizer by junior John Lamanteer. He pounced on a rebound following a save by CBA junior goalkeeper Brady Lepore off a strike from distance and ripped a follow-up shot into the side netting inside the far left post.

“This was a big game for us, with the student section backing us and a very good opponent,” Drechsler said. “We have a great defense and we knew we had to work our asses off for 80 minutes, because we knew this could be our last game. We did that for about 60 minutes and then they had a really good spell, but other than that, they didn’t really have any shots.”

CBA responded to its concession by out-shooting St. Augustine, 5-0, over the remainder of regulation, but none of those five shots came as close to putting a second goal on the Colts side of the scoreboard than the two chances CBA had in the first 12 minutes of regulation.

Arias was at the front end of both chances with pinpoint services into the box, the first of which came in the 48th minute. Junior Matt Papagni slid the ball back to Arias on the left side, and with his left foot, Arias curled the the ball toward the far side of the box. It hooked away from goalkeeper Matt Carr and right to Messano, who headed the ball squarely off the crossbar.

Four minutes later, Brady carried the ball to the left corner and slipped it back to Arias in nearly the same spot Arias served the ball in to Messano. This time, Arias sent the ball in the air just beyond the far post, where sophomore Joe Guastella volleyed it out of the air, over the head of Carr, and right to the foot of junior Shane Landau, who buried a shot into the open net.

The assistant referee, however, ruled that the ball had crossed over the end-line in the air before Guastella played it back in, negating what would have been Landau’s second game-winning goal in as many games.

CBA staked its claim to a 1-0 lead by controlling the first half and making the most of the only scoring chance of the half by either team. Again, it was Arias who set up the scoring chance, this time by drawing a take-down inside the 18-yard box after Messano blasted a cross from the right side of the field to the left side of the box.

“He didn’t start at the beginning of the year, but my God, he has been incredible this year,” Drechsler said of Arias, who now has eight assists on the season and a goal in a win over Colts Neck. “He just produces opportunities like it’s nothing. He and James are probably the two best dribblers I have played with, which is awesome, because it gives me a chance to get some goals when they are drawing fouls.”

Drechsler stepped to the spot staring down Carr, who saved three attempts during St. Augustine’s penalty shootout win over St. John Vianney on Thursday and then made the clinching kick. Having watched the livestream of that game, Drechsler opted to beat Carr down the middle with a firm shot to the center of the goal as the senior keeper dove to his right.

“I had a plan,” Drechsler said. “We were in the locker room after beating St. Thomas Aquinas watching that pen shootout vs. SJV. Good keepers usually pick sides, so I was like, ‘If I get a pen, I’m going to try to go down the middle.’ It ended up working.”

With Monday’s win, CBA earns a trip to play Pingry — a team that handed CBA a 5-0 loss in September of 2024 and was an unfortunate bounce of the ball away from potentially taking down national powerhouse St. Benedict’s in the 2024 Non-Public A championship game. This season, the Big Blue enter the sectional final 17-2 with one-goal losses to St. Benedict’s and Hunterdon Central and just handed St. Joseph’s-Metuchen (18-1) its first loss of the season, 4-3, in the sectional semifinal.

“Our goal is to win,” Drechsler said. “We know Pingry is a nationally-ranked team, or at least has been this season. They are a top two or three team in the state. The fact that we made it here with a chance to go play on an iconic field in New Jersey soccer, obviously we’re going to want to win, but to make it there is incredible.”

“Last year was a tough loss up there, but I felt the game was more competitive than the score indicated,” Brady said. “We haven’t done much work on them this year. We have been taking it game by game, so we’ll dig in on them in the next few days. I think we match up well. They have a lot of young players vs. our seniors, so the emotional side of it could be an advantage. We’ll take a closer look over these next couple days and see what we can do.”

 

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