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New-Look CBA Soccer Riding High After Handling Howell

Matt Manley|October 2, 2024|Last Updated October 7, 2024

FARMINGDALE — The Christian Brothers Academy soccer team started the season with nine new starters and a roster loaded with varsity newcomers hoping to leave their mark for one of the state’s most tradition-rich programs.

Senior Phil Bodenski was one of those two returning starters and like most Colts players before him, he developed a concrete vision of the way CBA plays.  That distinct CBA style has led to eight NJSIAA Group championships and more Shore Conference Tournament championships than any other program, including each of the last three seasons.

It did not take long, however, for Bodenski and his teammates to realize that in order to add to that collection of championships, the plan of attack that has worked so well for CBA over the years might have to change.

“You ask the kids: do you want to play a certain style, or do you want to win games?” CBA coach Tom Mulligan said. “The nice thing about high school soccer is there are social media people, newspaper reporters and the games get published. Winning matters to a bunch of high school boys and girls. It just matters more. It becomes part of it and they really enjoy this winning attitude that they now possess. They are getting hooked on it.”

Since starting the season 3-3, CBA has won six straight and capped a hellacious stretch of games Tuesday with a 3-1 win over a proven, senior-heavy Howell side behind Bodenski’s first career hat trick.

“The outlook of the team going into the season is totally different from what it is now,” Bodenski said. “In the beginning, we thought we were going to be a possession team, for example. Now, we just totally changed the way we play. It’s really just the players fighting for each other.”

With Tuesday’s result, CBA is one win from capturing its fourth straight official Shore Conference Class A North division championship, which the Colts will have a chance to do on Oct. 9 vs. Long Branch.

The results on the scoreboard and in the standings are a function of CBA’s more defensive tact — a style that would be unrecognizable to the Colts players of the past and the coaches of opposing programs who have painstakingly tried to counter CBA’s brand of possession-heavy soccer over the years.

“You’ve got to play to your team’s strength,” Mulligan said. “Although we do like to play out of the back over the years and we like to pass the ball and maintain possession throughout the match, we also realized that when we were doing that early in the season, we were defeating the purpose of trying to get the ball in the other net. We had to make some adjustments.

“I tried three or four systems of play between August 19 and September 15 until we finally came to the realization that this is going to be this group’s style of play. We’re going to play fast, we’re going to play aggressive, we’re going to play a defensive-minded game and we’re going to try to get the ball to the top as simply as possible.”

After mixed results through the first six games of the season, the Colts are starting to get the results typical of the CBA program, even if the style looks foreign.

“It’s definitely something new, but you play for the team,” Bodenski said. “Eventually, you’re just going to have to adjust to it. The way we’re playing, it’s working out. The coaches have been telling us that this is the way we’re going to have to play, and about four or five games ago, it just clicked.”

“That’s the job of a coach,” Mulligan said. “Not just changing tactics or the personnel and getting guys on the same page, but getting them to buy into it. With nine new players, two starters back, with a new group, that was the challenge, and I think they are starting to really dive in headfirst.”

Early strikes have been the norm for CBA during its winning streak and that trend continued on Tuesday. A foul outside the 18-yard box set up a 23-yard direct kick and Bodenski took the assignment. The senior center midfielder hammered a shot through a porous Howell wall and into the goal for a 1-0 Colts lead in the fourth minute.

Howell responded a little more than two minutes later, when senior John Fiorillo headed in a corner kick by classmate Tyler Borenstein. It was the first goal CBA allowed since Rumson-Fair Haven’s game-winning goal in the 73rd minute to beat the Colts, 1-0, on Sept. 17.

Over the five games leading up to Tuesday’s road match against the Rebels, CBA outscored its opposition, 15-0. Those five games were against Toms River North, Manchester, Manasquan, Monroe and Holmdel.

“Unfortunately, we gave up a goal because the kids were taking some pride in getting some shutouts, but there is no shame on that because Howell is a good team,” Mulligan said. “They deserved at least one.”

CBA regained the lead over Howell in the 23rd minute, when Bodenski emerged from a scrum in front of the goal following a corner kick and whipped a shot into the right corner of the goal.

Bodenski added an insurance goal in the 72nd with a penalty kick that followed a takedown of senior Brandon McDonough inside the box.

“That was the first ever free kick that I scored on,” Bodenski said of his first goal. “I felt good about it, I just laced my foot through it and it went in. The second one, I got a little fortunate and this wasn’t a single-person effort at all. The goals I scored today were because of the efforts of other guys on the team.”

Both teams played without key players on the attack Tuesday, with CBA missing senior forward and second-year starter Brayden Perry and Howell playing without senior forward and first-team All-Shore returnee Nick Turturro. Perry is nursing a hamstring injury, while Turturro injured his left ankle in a 1-0 win over Marlboro on Sept. 25.

“It doesn’t (affect us) because we have so many great guys on this team that play for each other,” Bodenski said of the injury. “Perry is a heavy loss for us, but I’m glad everyone was able to step up. (Turturro’s absence) was definitely a load off the shoulders of our defense, because Nick is a really big force on offense. But we just played the way we always play.”

Howell senior Tye Maser — another first-team All-Shore standout in 2023 — returned from a hamstring injury on Monday. He was playing through visible discomfort throughout the second half.

CBA is especially equipped to thrive despite injuries to players like Perry, who posted six goals and two assists as a junior in 2023. Mulligan is using more players than ever in a given game, employing the depth of his program to make up for the lack of experience.

“That’s where your reserves come in,” Mulligan said. “They have to come in and contribute whatever they can: five minutes, 10 minutes – whatever it is. They have to understand whatever they can support on the field is meaningful. Brendan McDonough was my manager last year and he comes on the field in this game because he’s got some pace and effort and energy. He gets taken down in the box and Phil knocks in a penalty kick to seal the game for us. So every contribution is noticed.”

“In previous seasons, we have played with the same 14 guys every single game,” Bodenski said. “Now, it’s like 22 guys putting in shifts, giving everything they have, doing what they can do. Everybody is contributing something.”

Tuesday was the first game during the current winning streak that CBA won away from its home field — Dan Keane Field — which is as wide of a high-school field as there is. This year’s Colts team finally learned to turn its home pitch into an advantage, but also showed Tuesday it could win in a different environment.

The win over Howell was the third road win for CBA, which beat Bergen Catholic, 5-2, and Marlboro, 1-0, in difficult road settings. The Colts also lost at Pingry, 5-0, in a rematch of last year’s South Jersey Non-Public A final, which CBA won, 1-0. The Pingry loss was one of two losses by a four-goal margin or greater, with unbeaten LaSalle Academy of Pennsylvania handling the Colts, 4-0, in the season opener in Lincroft.

“I challenged them early in the season with a very demanding schedule with a lot of inexperienced players,” Mulligan said. “They got through that, and they just got through a really difficult stretch of the season with four games in seven days. When I looked at this part of the schedule back in August, I said, ‘This is insane.’ It doesn’t let up, it keeps coming, but that’s what makes it fun.”

The Colts have four matches remaining before the start of the Shore Conference Tournament — three of which are SCT group play games while the other is the final Class A North game vs. Long Branch. If CBA can run its winning streak to 10, it will earn a first-round bye in the SCT on top of a fourth straight A North title.

“They are really buying in and bringing everything they have to every single match,” Mulligan said. “I think their attitude is what I’m most happy about right now.”

“The start to the season wasn’t the best, but we have bounced back entirely,” Bodenski said. “These last three games were some of the hardest on our schedule all season, and we fought through. Everyone played for each other, so the team has really come together right now. I’m really happy.”

 

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