Long Branch Boys Soccer Headed Back to CJ 3 Final After More Late Magic

MIDDLETOWN — Through the first 12 games, the Long Branch boys soccer team endured 10 losses. In the first four of those games, the young, inexperienced squad could not even score a goal.

With a first-year head coach in Bill Rohr and six new starters, little went right for Long Branch.

Now, one month after its last loss, there is no stopping the Green Wave.

Four days after shocking Colts Neck — the undefeated Shore Conference Tournament champion — Long Branch continued its improbable postseason run by scoring three goals in just over three minutes late in the second half to beat Middletown South, 3-0, and reach the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III final for the second time in four years.

Senior Evan Santiago broke the scoreless deadlock with a header in the 74th minute and classmate Johan Gomez tacked on two more goals that came two minutes apart from one another to cap the Green Wave scoring burst that closed out the team’s ninth straight win since that aforementioned 2-10 start.

“It’s just incredible,” Santiago said. “We knew we could do it from the start, but it looked very hard to accomplish what we wanted to based on how we started. We didn’t really get our rhythm and we thought maybe we wouldn’t be able to make it, but we followed through.”

Long Branch breaks through in the 74th minute on a header by Evan Santiago off a free kick by Alejandro Lopez-Flores. A minute later Johan Gomez buries a 25-yard bender for a 2-0 lead. pic.twitter.com/hClYMQ8Usn

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) November 12, 2024

Santiago headed in a free kick from classmate Alejandro Lopez-Flores with 6:57 left to play. Just under eight minutes earlier,  junior Brendan Mendoza appeared to give Long Branch a 1-0 lead when he knocked the ball into the net off a long pass ahead from goalkeeper Carlos Gerardo Rodas, but the officials ruled the ball went over the crossbar after the ball ended up outside the goal.

Video showed the ball enter the right corner of the goal and a loosely tied net examined after the game left a gap in the netting that likely allowed the ball to slide through.

I made mention in yesterday’s recap of a Long Branch goal that was waved off for going over the bar. Here is the video. Turned out to mean nothing but it loomed as a huge call for about 8 minutes. pic.twitter.com/9cFZzFx7eB

— Matt Manley (@Matt_Manley) November 13, 2024

The disallowed goal did not deter Long Branch and a Middletown South foul 30 yards away from the goal set up the Green Wave with another opportunity in the 73rd minute. As the clock passed into the 74th, Lopez-Flores served the ball into the middle of the box, where Santiago headed it through the grasp of Middletown South goalkeeper Carson Perry.

“I could just tell right after that we were going to use it to amp us up,” Santiago said. “We were even more hungry after they took the goal away. Then, we put one in right after.”

The goal was the third of the tournament for Long Branch’s center fullback and senior captain — all of which were set up by free kicks from Lopez-Flores.

“I tried to start my run a little bit farther back,” Santiago said. “It was a hard angle, but I still got to it. I just tried to separate myself from the defenders. I am very thankful and it’s all Alejandro and his assists. He gets it to me every time. It’s not just what I’m doing; it’s mostly his passing skills.”

Now armed with a lead, the Green Wave added to its lead a little more than a minute later, when Gomez scored the first of his two goals in a span of 2:04. The first was a curling, left-footed shot from 25 yards out that nicked the left post as it tucked into the side netting.

In the 77th, junior Thomas Silva skipped a pass through the defense for Gomez, who slipped behind the back line and beat Perry to the ball for a chip that ended up in the goal for Long Branch’s third goal in a span of 3:22.

After starting the season 2-10, Long Branch has reeled off nine straight wins to reach the Central Jersey Group III championship for the first time since 2021, when the Green Wave lost at Hopewell Valley. It is also the third sectional final appearance in the last six years, with Long Branch losing at Hunterdon Central in the 2019 Central Group IV championship.

“It was definitely a big turnaround,” Gomez said. “We started the season off in the wrong space. We flipped it around with that Coaches Cup run. We changed things around, got our momentum and then we just got flying.

“I always believed in my team. I always believed we had a strong team and I would always try to lift our heads up and let them know that good things are coming if we keep working.”

The turnaround to Long Branch’s season began with the Shore Conference Coaches Cup — the consolation tournament for teams that failed to qualify for the Shore Conference Tournament. The Green Wave were relegated to the Coaches Cup once it lost at Southern Regional, 2-1, in overtime in a match it needed to win in order to qualify for the SCT. Long Branch then steamrolled through the Coaches Cup by outscoring four opponents by a combined score of 21-2, capped by a 3-0 win over Shore Regional — the 2023 overall Group I champion.

“It was an inexperienced team,” Santiago said. “We didn’t really have any minutes together as a group and a lot of the guys didn’t have minutes on varsity. We have a lot of new starters and they have made the biggest difference possible.”

Since that lost to Southern — which will play for a sectional title in South Jersey Group IV on Friday — Long Branch is 9-0 with an eye-popping aggregate score of 33-4. Its most impressive win, however, was its closest: on Friday, the Green Wave erased a 2-0 halftime deficit on the road to beat Colts Neck, 3-2. Colts Neck was the lone remaining undefeated public-school program in the state heading into that match and finished the season outscoring its opponents, 82-20.

“We just found that switch,” Gomez said. “We switched to the next gear. We just started moving the ball, talking to each other, lifting each other up. I think it just shows we can compete with any team if we put our minds to it and we put the effort in.”

The strong finish to the season likely does not come as a surprise to the teams that beat Long Branch early in the season. The Green Wave finished 0-6 in the Shore Conference Class A North division — routinely the Shore’s toughest on an annual basis. Three of those losses were by a one-goal margin and each of Long Branch’s four other losses during the first 12 games were also by a one-goal margin. In addition to losing to six Class A North teams and Southern, the Green Wave also lost to SCT semifinalist Ocean and a Manalapan side ranked No. 2 in the Shore Sports Insider Top 10.

“We were in the toughest division, playing the best teams in the Shore Conference and we were doing it with a lot of guys who weren’t used to varsity soccer, so that was an adjustment” Rohr said. “We knew the talent was there, but wins and losses mean a lot to high school kids and it was definitely a humbling experience for them. We just kept telling them to keep working, keep believing in each other and the results would eventually come.”

For the second time in four years, Long Branch will travel to Mercer County in search of its first sectional title since 1997 on Friday, when the Green Wave take on No. 3 Steinert.

“I have no idea what it’s going to feel like,” Santiago said. “I just want us to go out and keep doing what we have been doing for 80 minutes hope that we can win again.”