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Little Things Add Up in Toms River South’s Return to Sectional Semifinals

Matt Manley|November 8, 2025|Last Updated November 10, 2025

TOMS RIVER — Before Mike Conover was the head boys soccer coach at his high school alma mater, he was a starter on successful soccer and baseball teams at Toms River South High School, then a freshman coach in the soccer program prior to taking over as head coach in 2023.

While Conover has a special affinity for the group of seniors he has coached since they were freshmen, he also loves to see role players step up and deliver the way he did as a hard-nosed outside back for a sectional championship soccer team and a speedy outfielder for a storied baseball program.

That is why Conover loved what he saw Friday in the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III quarterfinals.

First-year varsity senior Jimmy Aguilar Ochoa came off the bench to score the game’s lone goal and junior outside back Christian Oberti highlighted another standout defensive effort by the Indians in a 1-0 Toms River South win over Ocean City that sends Conover’s club back to the sectional semifinal round for the first time since he was the freshman coach in 2022.

“It’s still Toms River South,” Conover said. “We’re just trying our best to continue the tradition and all the hard work that goes into it. It’s never been the prettiest game of soccer, but it can be effective, it can win a lot of games and our guys just work their tails off and it’s great for them to see the results.”

This year’s Toms River South team has been built, first and foremost, around preventing goals and the Indians have been as good as any in school history at doing so. Friday marked Toms River South’s 12 shutout of 2025, which tied a single-season program record. This year’s team is also on track to allow fewer goals during a season than any in program history — a record that currently stands at 15 allowed, according to Conover. Through 21 games, Toms River South has allowed 13 goals.

“I think it’s just passion and wanting it more,” senior defender Brody Robillard said. “We go after every fifty-fifty ball, we play to feet, we trust each other. It just comes from playing together. At practice, we go a hundred percent all the time. We have been playing here for a long time, even going back to middle school, so it’s a very tight group.”

Seniors Nigel Graham and Robillard have been the steady, three-year starters leading the back line with Oberti playing the role of versatile back who is on his way to three years as a defensive starter for the varsity team. Freshman Liam Browne has played his way into a starting spot at the other outside back and the Indians have relied on another freshman, Connor Starr, in goal all season long. The back four kept Ocean City’s dangerous attack away from Starr for most of Friday’s game, with the rookie goalie saving two shots to secure shutout No. 12 on the season.

“Nigel and Brody are three-year starters and leaders in the back for us and Oberti has just been an absolute hammer for us since coming up to play as a sophomore,” Conover said. “He is physical — he could play football and be a middle linebacker and captain. He is just a weapon. Then you have a freshman in Liam Browne doing a great job on the left side. They are all competitors at the end of the day and they all want to win really bad.”

Robillard began the game marking Ocean City top scorer Chase Bowman, who entered Friday with 18 goals and six assists, but quickly gave way to Oberti while sliding to the middle to run the defense along with Graham while the best overall athlete on Toms River South’s defense handled the Red Raiders’ greatest scoring threat.

“It was originally me at right back but I knew that kid was way too fast for me, so we made the switch to give us a faster match-up for him,” Robillard said. “I think (Oberti) did a great job. I feel like I see the field better from the middle of the field and he is just a lock-down defender.”

Bowman did work his way into a scoring chance in the 26th minute, but his strike from the top of the 18-yard box hit the left post. That was the closest Ocean City came to breaking through against Starr and the defense.

On the other end of the field, it was also an unsung Toms River South player who came through with a defining play in the game. Aguilar Ochoa is a senior transfer from Jackson Memorial who had never played high school soccer prior to this fall. Aguilar Ochoa has experience playing club soccer and in his final high school year, he decided he wanted to experience playing for his school, even though it was not his school before the first day of classes in September.

“He is a dude who is hungry, wants to be here and the guys treat him like he’s somebody who has been here for four years,” Conover said of Aguilar Ochoa. “This is a place where we just have people on this field at all times of the day playing soccer and there is an energy that comes from people being out here and wanting to play soccer or football or run track and you can see it. So somebody sees a guy like Jimmy just messing around, they say, ‘Hey, why don’t you play for the high school team?’ That’s not necessarily Jimmy’s story, but that’s just the attitude around here about kids here participating in sports. It’s been great for Jimmy, it’s been great for our guys and it’s just been a great story.”

“When I got here, all the guys were super nice and welcoming and they just worked really hard,” Aguilar Ochoa said. “I just wanted to give them all my energy, whether it’s practice or the game. I wanted to experience that team spirit that comes with high-school soccer, so I was willing to do whatever the team needed me to do.”

After sitting the first 22 days per NJSIAA transfer rule, Aguilar Ochoa contributed two goals during the regular season, but saved his signature moment for the sectional quarterfinals. In the 63rd minute, senior Shane Gambarony gathered a pass from classmate Jacob Myers and attempted to get off a shot against Ocean City goalkeeper Eddie Fuller. Gambarony went to the ground as he poked the ball toward the middle of the 18-yard box.

Aguilar Ochoa was ready for the loose ball and beat Fuller to it with a slide that ended with the Indians senior poking the ball past the Red Raiders keeper and into the goal.

“I just thought Shane wasn’t going to pass the ball so I might as well just go for it,” Aguilar Ochoa said. “Just slide; that was the only chance. That could be my last touch in my last game, so I just went all-out.”

Gambarony is Toms River South’s lead scorer and was the the team’s most consistently dangerous player throughout the quarterfinal match. He drew a foul inside the 18-yard box in the 12th minute, but Fuller denied Gambarony his 17th goal of the season on the ensuing penalty kick with a diving stop to his right on a low strike.

“Shane is the lightning rod,” Conover said. “Any guy who attracts the attention he does is going to open up the field for other guys.”

The Toms River South-vs.-Ocean City rivalry has developed since Toms River South moved from Group IV into Group III in 2013 and since that year, the two teams have met five times since 2014, with Ocean City owning a 3-2 head-to-head edge after Toms River South’s 2025 win. Ocean City eliminated Toms River South in the 2023 opening round with a wild, 5-3, win in which the Red Raiders scored the final three goals of the game to deny the Indians a road upset in Conover’s first season as head coach.

“Toms River South vs. Ocean City goes back to when (assistant) coach (Ben) Brown and I were playing,” Conover said. “I feel like the home team always ends up winning. We went down there (in 2023) and lost a barn-burner, 5-3, and then they had to come back up here this year.

“We talk a lot of about Toms River South Athletics buying in and supporting everybody on every team. We work out together in the offseason and we cheer each other on. We keep seeing Ocean City in every sport and we’re on a little bit of a winning streak the last couple of years, so it’s nice, but it has definitely become like a rivalry in the state tournament.”

Toms River South has not been to a sectional final since winning three consecutive NJSIAA sectional titles from 2015 to 2017. Conover was a senior on the 2015 team that beat Ocean City in the South Jersey Group III championship game one year after losing to the Red Raiders on the road in 2014 championship.

Conover’s current team will try to accomplish something similar to what Conover’s 2015 team did. Last year, Toms River South’s season ended in the sectional quarterfinal at Moorestown — the No. 1 seed in this year’s South Jersey Group III bracket. On Tuesday, the Indians will return to Moorestown a round deeper into the tournament and attempt to knock off the team that beat them a year ago.

“They know the history,” Conover said. “They know how we lost to Ocean City when I was a junior and beat them the next year, just like Moorestown beat them last year. That’s all the motivation they needed today.”

“Of course we want revenge,” Robillard said. “But we’re enjoying this right now. It feels amazing to be back in the semifinals so we’re going to try to make the most of it.”

 

Note to reader: The original version of the post stated that the single-season record for goals allowed by Toms River South is 21. The correct record is 15, set in 2018.

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