Cool Blue: Shore Boys Soccer Delivers in Penalties, Upends Point Beach

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — With a coaching career that includes more than 200 victories, two NJSIAA sectional championships, an overall Group I championship, and an appearance in the Shore Conference Tournament semifinals as a Group I school, there is not much Shore Regional head coach Christian Pontier hasn’t seen.

Among the things he had not seen in his 17 seasons at the helm was his team’s fate in the NJSIAA Tournament rest on a round of penalty kicks. When Wednesday’s Central Jersey Group I semifinal at second-seeded Point Beach was tied through 100 minutes, Pontier did not have a shootout routine to fall back on and simply asked his team which players wanted to take the kicks and picked the most demonstrably confident five.

Through the first four kicks, that confidence was shaken, but without any personal precedent to fall back on, Pontier stayed the course and his first meaningful round of penalty kicks turned out to be a memorable one.

Senior Silvio Pessoa scored a first-half goal and buried all three of his penalty kicks while sophomore goalkeeper Juan Sanchez saved three shots during the shootout to send the third-seeded Blue Devils to a 2-1 win over Point Beach that ended with Shore outlasting Point Beach, 9-8, in 12 rounds of kicks.

Shore will play for its third sectional championship in five seasons Saturday, when the Blue Devils travel to play top-seeded Roselle Park.

“A PK shootout is a coin-flip,” said Pontier, who said his only other experience in penalty kicks was a first-round Shore Conference Coaches Cup win over Pinelands in 2022. “That’s why I don’t like going to them. You might as well just flip a coin to see who goes on.”

 

Juan Sanchez saves the final attempt and Shore beats Point Beach 9-8 in 12 rounds of penalty kicks. Both keepers saved 3 shots in the shootout. https://t.co/91IgXXiuJI

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) November 11, 2026

“They have been playing a lot of good teams down here and they are really good on their field,” Pessoa said of Point Beach. “It’s smaller and they know how to play on it. We had to change it up a little bit to match how they were playing. He had to adapt to it and I think we did a good job.”

Point Beach overcame a one-goal deficit going into the final five minutes and a red card that not only dropped the Garnet Gulls formation to 10 players, but also took the Shore Conference’s leading scorer off the field. A minute after senior teammate Landon Hoberman tied the game in the 75th, Hajeski was issued his second yellow card of the match when he was booked for a dangerous tackle, taking his 44 goals and 17 assists off the field. He drew his first yellow card for delaying the game in the first half.

With both teams fatigued by the end of the first overtime, the game progressed to penalty kicks. Both Pessoa and Point Beach senior Brody Powers kicked off 3-for-3 shootouts with conversions on the first attempt for each team. Then, both teams hit a shooting cold spell while the goalies were in the zone. Sanchez and Point Beach sophomore Parker Sario each made three saves during the shootout, with all three of Sario’s saves coming consecutively on the second through fourth shots of the round.

“It’s just mind games,” Sanchez said. “You’ve got to have composure to do it. You’ve just got to pick your side and go for it. If you get it, you get it.”

After three straight misses by each side, both sets of shooters responded by making seven straight kicks, starting with senior Bryan Silveira for Shore, followed by junior Tyler Morgan for Point Beach. Each team continued to nail its chances, which set the stage for the decisive 12th round.

“I literally went over there and said, ‘Who wants to take one,'” Pontier said. “Five guys stepped up. I said, ‘Good, go ahead.’ That’s it. You need someone who is confident and wants to take it. Then, I had to look up the rules to see if I could change shooters and I had another guy volunteer, but I just decided to let it roll. It was a great game either way.”

Sophomore Gavin Cavanaugh, who accounted for the first of six straight combined misses by the two teams in the shootout, buried his second kick of the shootout to put Shore ahead, 9-8, and Sanchez followed that conversion with a save one step to his left that ended the game.

“That first PK, I thought it was a good shot, but it was just a great save by the keeper,” Cavanaugh said. “I knew I was going the other way the second time and the third time, I was going back to the way I missed. It was stressful, but we made it through.

“I know we have great players. I know I’m a great player, so the most important thing is confidence. You have to keep your confidence.”

Silveira went 2-for-2 in the shootout for Shore and Powers matched Pessoa by going 3-for-3 as the Garnet Gulls’ first shooter. Junior Callum Spurrier and senior Michael Ilvento each missed their first attempts for Shore as well before both made their second attempts. Junior Jack Morgan, junior Max Ramirez and Hoberman each made their second shots after missing their first.

“I was a little nervous after the three of them missed their shots,” Pontier said. “You can’t sub on the first five anyway, then they started going in the second time around.”

“I’m really comfortable with myself taking my penalties,” Pessoa said. “I know I have to take them for the team and I’m confident in myself. It seemed like some of the boys needed a little lift up. It was the first time for a lot of them stepping up and taking penalties in that position. I had confidence in my team all the way.”

 

Parker Sario saves the game for the time being for Point Beach in the 84th. https://t.co/sVYPh3elzM

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) November 11, 2026

Before the game reached the penalty stage, Sario made a sprawling, upper-90 save in the fourth minute of overtime on an on-target strike by Silveira to momentarily preserve the game for Point Beach.

“I thought the Point Beach goalie was excellent the whole game,” Pontier said of Sario. “Then he did it in the shootout. Very impressive.”

Shore jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the 13th minute on a finish by Pessoa off a cross from senior Mike Ilvento. Pessoa missed a six-yard shot wide to the left in the seventh minute by atoned for the misfire six minutes later.

“At first, we were looking to be a little more direct but after the red card, we were like, ‘No, now we’ve got to combine passes and get it done,'” said Pessoa, whom Pontier said played through an illness that forced him off the field for short bursts to recover. “It should be a huge advantage, but it wasn’t really today with a lot of guys cramping up and us just getting tired. They went a man down, but it was still pretty rough for us all the way to those penalties.”

 

Silvio Pessoa gets another chance in the 13th off a feed from Mike Ilvento and doesn’t miss this one. Shore leads Pt Beach 1-0. https://t.co/LYFwhpJ63O

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) November 11, 2026

The Blue Devils produced two more near-goals that missed just wide of either post — one a shot by Ilvento from inside the box and another a header by Silveira off a cross from sophomore Hayden DeRosa.

“Even if we went up 2-0, these guys (Point Beach) have come back from two down, three down, and the game is never over with them,” Pontier said. “I thought we did a really good job on Powers and Hajeski. I told our guys, ‘If we could keep those two guys off the board, we’ll win.’ I didn’t envision penalties, though.”

Point Beach closed the gap in possession and chances during the second half and finally broke through in the last five minutes. Ramirez beat a defender to the end-line on the left side and served a pinpoint cross to the front of the goal. Hajeski engaged one Shore defender, Sanchez could not reach the ball with his diving attempt for it and Hoberman came crashing in from the far side of the field to knock in the cross from Ramirez and tie the game, 1-1.

“Everybody was on Evan and Brody, so we had to push forward with a 4-3-3 in the second half to spread it wide and it worked,” Palumbo said. “It was a great half. Our guys were gassed by the end of the first overtime and after that, it was just playing kick-and-run to try to get to penalties. It happens. It was a great game of soccer. Shore’s a great team, Christian is a phenomenal coach and they are going to go win the section.”

Hajeski (44) and Powers (37) combined for 81 of their team’s 101 goals in 2026 and in Point Beach’s 19 wins, either Powers or Hajeski scored a goal in all of them, while both players notched either a goal or an assist in all 19 as well.

“Words can’t express what they mean to the program,” Palumbo said of his star duo. “It stinks now the way it ended, especially for Evan, but it’ll get better when he comes back next year. He’ll come back stronger.”

During a 19-2 season, Point Beach made a habit of erasing halftime deficits and winning games behind strong second-half performances, which nearly led the Garnet Gulls to their 20th win and a sectional championship appearance.

Even in defeat, Point Beach ended the season having authored what might have been the best season in the history of its program. The Garnet Gulls won their first 16 games and won the Shore Conference Class B South division championship, which was the program’s first division title outside of the Class B Central division. Their perfect 5-0 division record included a 4-1 win over South Jersey Group II finalist Lacey and a 7-2 win over South Group IV finalist Jackson.

Point Beach’s only loss prior to Wednesday was a 1-0 defeat in overtime to Holmdel in the championship game of the Shore Conference Coaches Cup, which the Garnet Gulls chose to enter in lieu of the Shore Conference Tournament.

“I still couldn’t be more proud of my guys,” Palumbo said. “The 19-2 is a school record. We would always love to make it over the hump, but these soccer tournaments are so hard to win.”

As Point Beach puts on hold its chase for a first ever sectional championship until 2027, Shore is still in the hunt for its third Central Group I title in five years. The Blue Devils came up short of the final in both 2024 and 2025 after winning back-t0-back sectional titles in 2022 and 2023, including the overall Group I championship in 2023.

Pessoa, Ilvento, and center fullback Jackson Motzenbecker were freshmen contributors on the 2023 state championship team and are hoping to bring their careers full circle with another Group I title.

“I really love this group of seniors,” Pontier said. “They were freshmen on that team and they contributed a lot. Those three guys — Silvio, Jackson and Mike — all played a lot on that team. I’m so happy for them, because they are just great guys. They are my captains and I told them at the beginning of the year, ‘You’ve got to remember what it was like when you were freshmen.’ We have a lot of upperclassmen this year and they are just a really good crew.”

“It’s a full-circle moment,” Pessoa said. “It was my freshman year. Now, I’m with Jackson and Michael and the rest of the team and we’ve got to go do it again.”