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Saul Good: Junior’s Hat Trick Carries Middletown South Boys Soccer to First Sectional Title

Matt Manley|November 15, 2025|Last Updated November 15, 2025

COLTS NECK — Prior to Friday’s NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III championship game, the Middletown South boys soccer team had already defeated the section’s No. 1 seed in the Shore Conference Tournament championship game, so in that sense, beating Colts Neck for a second time in a championship game on Friday was nothing the Eagles had not done before.

On the other hand, despite defeating Colts Neck for the SCT championship on penalty kicks on Oct. 25, the Eagles had yet to score against the Cougars in 180 minutes this season and that drought extended to 225 heading into Friday’s second half.

Then, Connor Saul broke the dam.

The Eagles junior striker ended 225 scoreless minutes for Middletown South against Colts Neck in the 47th minute with Friday’s first goal, then scored two more as second-seeded Middletown South exploded for four second-half goals to rout the Cougars, 4-0, to claim another first for the program in 2025: its first ever NJSIAA sectional championship.

“Once you get one goal, it feels like it just keeps coming, especially in a final,” Saul said. “It was just fantastic. We have been coming up together since middle school, winning at every level. It’s more like a brotherhood. I wouldn’t even call it a team.”

As Middletown South’s leading goal-scorer, Saul has been a primary source for scoring throughout the season, but he had never authored a performance like the one he crafted on Friday in his second hat trick of the season and first since Sept. 8. Based on Middletown South’s difficulty scoring against Colts Neck, plus the Eagles’ airtight defensive performance over the previous 11 games, Saul and his team were thinking one goal could be all it takes to end Middletown South’s championship drought in boys soccer.

“When we score first, we’re lights-out,” Middletown South coach Dan Riverso said. “We’re like old-school Italian football. “Hard to break down and then everybody starts going direct and we get it down and then counter-act the overload.”

In the 47th minute, Middletown South finally got its goal. Senior Luke Strada served a corner kick into the box that dropped into the six-yard box, where Saul was part of a scrum to win it. With the ball bouncing in the box and his back to the goal, Saul threw his right foot at the ball and volleyed it backward into the goal for the 1-0 advantage — Middletown South’s first actual lead against Colts Neck this season.

“I just saw it bouncing and I knew, no matter what, I was inside the six (-yard box) so all I had to do was hit the ball,” Saul said. “So I just focused on hitting it and getting good contact.”

Middletown South’s defense and senior goalkeeper Carson Perry had posted nine shutouts in their last 11 games head into Monday, which included 1-0 wins over Long Branch and Northern Burlington in each of Middletown South’s last two wins. One goal has been enough for Middletown South almost the entirety of its double-digit winning streak, but while he trusted his defense, Saul was not satisfied.

“Once we get one, most of the time, we sit,” Saul said. “This was our third time playing them in one season, so we wanted to kill them, so we just kept going.”

In the 66th minute, the Eagles broke loose on a counter-attack and the ball again made its way to Saul. The junior striker weaved through a pair of defenders and finished to the lower left of the goal for a 2-0 lead. Nine minutes later, Saul put the game out of reach with the third leg of his hat trick, settling a ball played into the box by senior Jack Cohen and slipping it past oncoming goalkeeper Liam Collura to make the score, 3-0.

“He doesn’t always play well, but that’s the reason you keep him in the game,” Riverso said. “He is just so clinical in front of the goal that you can’t risk not having him in there for chances like that.”

Junior Grant Pipercic capped the scoring in the 78th minute by catching up to a pass from sophomore Luke Strukiewicz, juking the keeper and walking it into the net. When the smoke had clear, Middletown South had hung four goals in 30 minutes on a Colts Neck team that had allowed only 10 in 21 games prior to Friday.

On the other end of the field, Middletown South has now won 12 straight games since a 4-3-1 start with 10 shutouts in the 12 wins. For the season the Eagles have conceded 13 goals in their 20 games this season and just two in their last 12.

While Denery, fellow senior and center fullback Ryan Kapler and junior Brody Illingworth are experienced returning seniors leading the defense, the coaching staff and players agree that the defense went to another level with the promotion of junior Charlie Welsh from junior varsity to starting center back in the middle of the season.

“Charlie Welsh coming in has really solidified us at center back,” Riverso said. “We started with Brett at center back just trying to find the right mix of players in the back. Once he went in, it was lights out. We weren’t giving up goals, we weren’t giving up shots. Obviously, having Ryan (Kapler) helps a lot — you put anybody next to him and they are going to be good. It’s just that thing that they have together back there that really separates them.”

In Friday’s clean sheet, the Eagles again held the Shore’s most dangerous scorer without a goal. Junior Sean Moore entered Friday with 30 goals after scoring 29 as a sophomore a year ago and during this season, Moore has failed to score a goal or record an assist just five times all season. Middletown South now accounts for two of those five matches and Colts Neck is 2-3 in that collection of games.

Although Moore did not finish a goal, he was dangerous for Colts Neck, particularly during the scoreless first half. In the final three minutes, Moore waited out a bouncing ball in the box, maneuvered around a defender and poked a left-footed shot that trickled just wide of the right post.

Middletown South had the first quality chance of the game when senior Mason Petke ripped a shot on goal that Collura saved in the fourth minute. From there, however, Colts Neck was the more dangerous team in the first half, but the Eagles survived the first 40 and came out for the second half poised to dominate.

“We played into what they wanted to do,” Riverso said. “They were very direct and we were just giving it right back to them. When we slow the game down, the result is so much different.”

Outside of the corner kick service that led to the first goal by Saul, it was a relatively quiet game for Strada, who has been the last piece to a championship puzzle for Middletown South this season. Strada played in Major League Soccer’s MLS Next program last fall, which did not allow him to play for his high school team. Without Strada, Middletown South went 10-8-3 in 2024 and lost to Long Branch, 3-0, in the Central Jersey Group III semifinals, which came after losing on penalty kicks at Lacey in the Shore Conference Tournament round of 16.

Strada has been a force all over the field for Riverso’s team and has been particularly key in the NJSIAA Tournament. He scored a hat trick in the first-round win over Pemberton to go with an assist, scored the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Long Branch and assisted Saul’s game-winner vs. Northern Burlington on Tuesday. In all, Strada sports a line of 11 goals and 11 assists, including four goals and three assists during Middletown South’s first ever sectional-championship run.

“There is that extra fire that the team has when he’s around,” Riverso said. “That trickles down.”

Strada’s return has also coincided with Saul’s breakout, which started with five goals in the first two games of the season. In tournament games, Saul has been at his best, accounting for seven goals and one assist in eight games between the SCT and NJSIAA Tournaments.

With the program’s first ever Shore Conference Tournament championship and first ever sectional championship in hand, 2025 has already been the best season in Middletown South program history. The Eagles will now try to keep it going Tuesday against Moorestown in the Group III semifinal, with the winner advancing to the overall Group III final on Sept. 22.

“I think in the Shore Conference final, there were more nerves, because we hadn’t won a championship,” Riverso said. “We got the monkey off our back and we didn’t have to worry about the experience part of it. We could just go out and play.”

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