Colts Neck’s Surge Continues with Dominant Win in Coaches Cup Final

NEPTUNE — After starting the season 1-9, Colts Neck’s continued its surge in the second half of the season with a dominant 7-1 victory over St. Rose in the Shore Coaches Cup final. The victory makes it six wins in the last seven games for the Cougars.

Colts Neck, who struggled to score goals in the first half of the season, got off to a fast start and continued their trend of scoring multiple goals in a game. Junior Sylvia Capri scored her fifth goal of the season just two minutes into the game after the Cougars moved the ball down the field quickly. 

“I think a big part of it was we lost seven starters from last season and we did not have replacements on hand,” Colts Neck coach Kevin Hein said. “New kids had to come in and play at the right pace because the varsity pace is a lot different from the middle school pace four out the five kids were playing and certainly different from the JV pace. It took us a while to put things together.”

This was the fifth straight game that Colts Neck scored four or more goals and fifth out of their last six games. In the Cougars seven wins this season they have scored 38 goals compared to six goals in their ten losses. 

“We had a really rough start to the season,” senior Olivia Gehman said. “Finally being able to put together wins and winning as a group is amazing. We started to be more focused at practices and practiced on shooting and it has a big impact on our games.”

The Cougars got their second goal after Gehman sent a cross into the box that bounced off a St. Rose defender into the goal. Gehman was credited with the goal and scored a second goal in the second half using her speed to get a one on one chance with St. Rose goalkeeper Gianna Talarico.

The final score does not reflect the game Talarico had in goal for the Roses. She finished with ten saves and stopped several one on one chances for Colts Neck. The Cougars were able to take advantage of second chance shots and St. Rose’s inability to clear the ball out of danger. 

In what was maybe the best goal of the day, senior Terri Morgan scored on a header off Aamya Yedlaraijaih cross in the 24th minute of the game to make it 3-0. Morgan and Gehman created several opportunities throughout the game for the Cougars with their speed and ball movement.

“Halfway through the season we had a pretty big injury and we talked about putting her (Gehman) to outside back,” Hein said. “She played there for five games and I had to apologize to her at one point and she said, ‘Coach I do not care, stats do not mean anything to me and I will play wherever you need me.’ That gave us flexibility because when our outside back went down today she moved back there and marked their top scorer.”

Sophomore Olivia Brown was the second Cougar to score two goals, both off rebounds. One came in the first half to make it 4-0 and then the last goal for Colts Neck to make it 7-0. Brown has scored all six of her goals this season in five of the the last six wins for Colts Neck. 

Colts Neck conceded St. Rose’s lone goal with six minutes left when Lucy Annitto scored on a rebound. That was the only goal given up by the Colts Neck defense in the Coaches Cup Tournament. 

“We figured we would have to man mark the striker (Molly Cullen),” Hein said. “We started doing that against Wall and it has worked pretty well. It gives us the flexibility of not having to play flat and we can do more of a stopper/sweeper role.”

The win moves Colts Neck up to sixth place in Central Jersey Group 3 with 11.4 power points. As of now they will host Red Bank Regional in the first round of the sectional tournament. 

“When we were 1-9, I was trying to convince these kids that we can be a good team and we can be 10-10 no problem,” Hein said. “They responded saying that means we will have to win a sectional title and I said that is right: we can win a sectional title. If we play the way we can play, there is no doubt we can play with just about anybody. So keeping it going in the right direction has helped us and we just want to keep it going now.”