#image_title

Moore Brothers Lead Colts Neck Boys Soccer to Win Over Manasquan, No. 1 Ranking

Matt Manley|September 22, 2024|Last Updated September 24, 2024

COLTS NECK — Seven minutes from a monumental win in the relatively short history of the program, the Colts Neck boys soccer team went from the brink of a No. 1 ranking in the Shore Conference to the edge of the cliff.

Manasquan — also playing for a chance at the No. 1 ranking in the conference heading into the last full week of September — erased a two-goal deficit in the final seven minutes, capped by an equalizer with 10 seconds left.

Cruising toward another convincing victory a mere seven minutes earlier, the Cougars were forced to regroup while grappling with the reality that they let one get away.

All the while, Colts Neck coach Art Collier knew his team still had the same advantage in overtime that it had all game.

“If you’re going to be in a barnburner, you want the Moore brothers on your side,” Collier said.

Senior Kyle Moore and sophomore brother Sean Moore combined for all three Colts Neck goals Saturday and in the second minute of overtime, Sean Moore buried his second goal of the game to bail out the Cougars and give them a 3-2 win over Manasquan in a game that was, effectively, contested with the No. 1 ranking in the Shore Sports Insider Top 10 on the line.

“We’re always going to be confident with these guys going into overtime,” Collier said. “There’s a lot of seniors on this team. (Senior) Sam Gershon said, ‘Great mental reset.’ We were losing our minds screaming at the referee over calls we felt were incorrect and the old Colts Neck might have packed it up and gone in a different direction, but the seniors took charge and got the guys calmed down. They came out with an awful lot of poise.”

Colts Neck entered the week as the No. 3 team in the rankings and Manasquan No. 9, but the Warriors upset No. 1 Howell Thursday to improve to 4-0 and a win over the No. 3 team would have warranted a surge to No. 1. Colts Neck, meanwhile, only had two spots to jump and with Howell and No. 2 Christian Brothers Academy losing this week, the Cougars would be the obvious choice with a win over Manasquan.

For the first 73 minutes, Colts Neck asserted control of the match, with senior goalkeeper Justin Appel denying a point-blank shot early in the second half for Manasquan’s only shot on goal before the frenetic final seven minutes.

“His saves were big-time,” Collier said of Appel. “He couldn’t have done a thing about the goals, especially the first one. He almost had it. He couldn’t quite get to it, but if he did, it would have been spectacular. His ability to make saves that look like sure goals is incredible.”

On the other end, Sean Moore converted a first-half penalty kick that he earned by drawing a trip in the box and later chested a ball out of the air to Kyle, who blasted a 20-yard volley in for a 2-0 lead in the 42nd minute.

Collier substituted for both Moore brothers with 15 minutes to go, feeling that the Cougars were controlling enough of the game to give his star duo a breather and knowing he could send them back out should Manasquan draw closer.

With seven minutes on the clock, Manasquan indeed drew closer. Senior Cooper Daly unleashed a 30-yard tracer that eluded the leaping reach of Appel and tucked into the upper left corner of the goal for a stunning Warriors icebreaker.

As expected, the Moore brothers returned to the field and Sean Moore had a chance to put the game away in the 78th minute, when he got behind the defense and headed the ball past Manasquan senior goalkeeper Dylan Morris. The ball, however, hit the ground and bounced wide of the left post to keep Manasquan’s hopes alive.

“When you have opportunities to put the game away, you have to finish,” Collier said. “We had numerous opportunities to the end to make it 3-0. If we make it 3-0 before they make it 2-1, it’s a completely different game. Whenever you let a team change the score like that, it’s high school soccer. Everybody gets fired up and motivated and next thing you know, it’s a barnburner.”

The Warriors earned a free kick on the right side of the field in the final seconds of regulation and a suspected head injury prompted the officials to stop the clock, which allowed Manasquan to set up an arrangement in the box for senior and free-kick wizard Cristian Gonzalez. With nine field players and Morris in the box, Gonzalez served the ball to the far left post, where senior Braeden DeAngelis headed it in for the equalizer with 10 seconds showing on the clock.

In Thursday’s 2-1 win over Howell, Gonzalez and DeAngelis connected on a nearly identical play to give Manasquan its first goal in that game.

Colts Neck made use of the five minutes between the end of regulation and start of overtime and immediately mounted a push toward the Manasquan goal. During that push, Manasquan knocked an attempted clearance to the right side, just beyond the edge of the 18-yard box, where sophomore Pedro Navroski shook a defender and slid the ball into the middle of the 18-yard box.

Sean Moore positioned himself between two defenders and after winning the ball from the defender fronting him, he juked the second defender to create a wide-open shot against Morris from the top of the six-yard box. Moore calmly ripped it past Morris and sprinted to the corner flag to start the celebration.

“Those opportunities he is getting have a lot to do with instinct, but it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have a supporting cast to create opportunities,” Collier said. “It’s overtime and you’ve got a sophomore in Pedro with the ball at his feet and as a defender, you have to make a decision. He (Pedro) is drawing attention and what we want our guys to understand is you can be a decoy and a lot of times when you are, the ball still winds up back at your feet. Give it up to get it back.

“Guys like Ben Kazani and Gershon in the midfield are capable of possessing the ball so Sean and Kyle can run. The other guys are doing the work and that’s the great thing. Sean and Kyle are at the top of the scoring table, but everybody benefits.”

In addition to a battle for the No. 1 ranking, Saturday’s game in Colts Neck was a Shore Conference Tournament group play game between the two sides that figured to be the contenders to win Group I. Manasquan had already defeated Raritan in group play, while Colts Neck had not played an SCT match before Saturday. The top three teams in total points (three for a win, one for a draw) in the five-team group advance to the actual Shore Conference Tournament.

With his two goals on Saturday, Sean Moore now has 10 in Colts Neck’s first 10 games, which is tied for the Shore Conference lead. Kyle Moore, meanwhile, registered his 100th career point on his goal in the season half. Both Sean and Kyle Moore are coming off 20-plus goals each in 2023 and are again carrying the Colts Neck scoring during the early part of 2024. Through seven matches, Colts Neck has scored 22 goals (second most in the Shore Conference behind Manalapan) and the Moore brothers have scored 17 of them.

“We’re on the same page,” Kyle said. “We’re way more connected and it’s looking like a special year so far.

“It starts at home and just the fact that we’re always together. We play video games, we watch football, we do everything together. We’re connected off the field, so it’s pretty easy to be connected on the field.”

Kyle Moore is now 10 points from becoming Colts Neck’s second all-time scoring leader and could make a run at the overall record (141 points), but should he establish a new career scoring mark for the program, his record may not stand for very long. His younger brother has already amassed 76 points (31 goals, 14 assists) in less than a season-and-a-half and while he is not quite scoring at a rapid enough pace to pass Kyle this season, Sean Moore is trending toward the 100-point mark by the end of the season and a potential run at 200 points. If he maintains his current goal-scoring pace, Moore will reach 50 career goals by the end of his sophomore season.

“I didn’t expect to be going off like I did last year,” Sean Moore said. “There is a lot of pressure coming off a year like that, but I’m just trying to play how I always play and we have a good team, so that makes it easier.”

“The records would be cool, but I would much rather win that first Shore Conference Championship for the school,” Kyle said. “Or a state championship for the school. It’s much better to get something as a team than by myself.”

Colts Neck has not been ranked No. 1 in the Shore Conference since 2012, when they made a brief appearance as the No. 1 team. That season, the Cougars were eliminated from the Shore Conference Tournament in their first game as a No. 2 seed and fell in the Central Jersey Group III semifinals to Allentown, 5-2.

Colts Neck’s new No. 1 ranking will immediately be put to the test this week against Manalapan in a game that will likely decide the winner of the Shore Conference Class A Central division race.

“The kids will enjoy it,” Collier said. “But we know being No. 1 only lasts us until Wednesday. You can lose that perch real quick. I remember an A North season when we were 5-15 and two of our wins were over teams ranked No. 1 at the time and it ruined their week. Manalapan is a good team — I’m telling our boys Manalapan is a better team than we are. They are better until we prove they are not and that’s the way we’re looking at it the rest of the way.”

Related Articles