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Worth the Wait: Moore Brothers Lead Colts Neck to 1st Shore Conference Title

Matt Manley|October 27, 2024|Last Updated October 30, 2024

NEPTUNE — As the final seconds ticked away in the 2024 Boys Soccer Shore Conference Tournament championship game, Colts Neck senior Kyle Moore raised his arms in the air, locked eyes with his head coach and made sure he was the first person he gave a victory hug.

Art Collier started the Colts Neck boys soccer program in 1998 and experienced immediate success with a 2000 NJSIAA Group I championship and an appearance in the 2001 Shore Conference Tournament final. The Cougars have not replicated either feat until this year, and it has been Moore and his younger brother, Sean, who have led the emergence of Colts Neck as a Shore Conference powerhouse.

It took Collier more than a quarter-century to coach Colts Neck to a championship-clinching moment and, not coincidentally, it took him a quarter-century to coach a player like either Kyle or Sean Moore.

Kyle Moore scored two go-ahead goals, including the game-winner on a clutch, picturesque finish in the 60th minute, to lead Colts Neck to a 3-2 win over Shore Conference standard-bearer Christian Brothers Academy and give Collier and the Cougars program their first ever Shore Conference Tournament championship.

Colts Neck senior Kyle Moore lines up the first of his two goals in the Shore Conference Tournament championship game. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspimages.com) - Colts Neck Kyle Moore Goal

Colts Neck senior Kyle Moore lines up the first of his two goals in the Shore Conference Tournament championship game. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspimages.com)

“The first thing I did was run over to him (Collier) and give him a big hug,” said Kyle Moore, who is a four-year starter for Colts Neck. “I’m so happy for him.”

“After the game, I said to Kyle, ‘You are the best player I have ever had,” Collier said. “I have had some thoughts about that question, but that goal proved it because of the stage that it was on. He has had a lot of great passes to him and a great supporting cast, but that particular goal was him and it was special.”

Colts Neck’s win Saturday night also snaps CBA’s run of three straight Shore Conference Tournament championships and is just the third time in 16 trips to the SCT final that CBA has lost.

“I really appreciate how hard it is for most teams to win a Shore Conference title,” Collier said. “It’s not as difficult for CBA evidently, but for most teams, to do this is very difficult to do. It’s a gauntlet and what we just went through is a gauntlet.”

Sean Moore also shined on the big stage at Memorial Field by scoring a goal and assisting Kyle’s game-winner. On the other side of the field,  junior center backs Dillon Younger and Ryan Spencer held the back line together against a relentless CBA attack and senior Justin Appel saved five shots to help Colts Neck protect the lead while overcoming a 10-5 advantage for CBA in shots and a 12-2 advantage in corner kicks.

Colts Neck sophomore Sean Moore. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspimages.com) - Colts Neck vs. CBA

Colts Neck sophomore Sean Moore. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspimages.com)

“Dillon Younger was tremendous today and so was Ryan Spencer,” Collier said. “They are not dye-in -the-wool soccer players. To cobble a bunch of athletes together and get them to play in an organized way, to the best of their ability, win or lose, has always been rewarding. It’s always more rewarding when it’s the Shore Conference final.”

Halfway through Saturday’s championship game, Colts Neck led by two goals and appeared poised to run out the clock on its first ever SCT championship as long as the Cougars could keep CBA from scoring two goals. Kyle Moore opened the scoring by knocking the ball into an empty net in the 20th minute after CBA senior goalkeeper Sean Najdzinowicz came off his line and could not beat Moore to the ball.

Just 55 seconds after Kyle Moore gave Colts Neck a 1-0 lead, Sean Moore earned a penalty kick by winning the ball on the right side of the box, spinning away from a defending and drawing a trip in the box by Najdzinowicz. Sean Moore took the penalty kick and buried it to the lower right of the goal for a 2-0 Cougars lead.

“It’s a dream come true,” Moore said of his goal. “You can’t ask for more than that.”

“We scored our two goals and had the momentum going our way,” Kyle Moore said. “Halftime came and they switched the whole game. Luckily, I was able to put that goal in and switch the momentum.

That 2-0 halftime lead lasted for the first 12 minutes of the second half before CBA broke through. After a long throw-in, senior Brandon Ortiz lined up a shot from inside the box on the right side and ripped it through a host of Colts Neck defenders, between the legs of Appel and off Kyle Moore’s leg before the ball settled into the right corner of the goal in the 53rd minute.

With momentum swinging in its favor, CBA took complete control of the game in the 58th minute by scoring the equalizer. Senior Phil Bodenski set up classmate Carlos Cano with a ball out to the left flank and Cano delivered a pinpoint cross to the far right post, where senior Nick Tesauro slammed a header back to the left corner of the goal to tie the game, 2-2.

“We dropped back defensively too much and that’s how they got their two goals,” Moore said. “When I scored that third goal, we all pushed up because we knew we couldn’t do that anymore. We stayed up and we ended the game like that.”

“I saw some of our guys drop their heads after CBA tied it,” Collier said. “I walked up and said, ‘Let’s go! pick your heads up.’ Then, I heard one or two claps behind me and then a whole chorus of people saying, ‘Let’s go Let’s go!’ Then they (the players) started to say it and right then, they believed. They still believed.”

CBA’s comeback forced Colts Neck to return to attack mode and the Cougars again proved dangerous when they needed a goal. Sean Moore sent a pass up ahead to Kyle, who took on three defenders and unleashed a perfect right-footed shot to the far left side of the netting from 12 yards out. Moore’s second strike of the game gave Colts Neck a 3-2 lead in the 60th minute.

“I just saw the ball in front of me and went and got it,” Kyle Moore said. “That changed the momentum back for us.”

“That’s Kyle Moore in a nutshell,” Collier said of the winning goal.

Both goalkeepers made a key save in the second half, starting with Appel’s leaping save on a 30-yard blast by CBA junior James Brady in the 49th minute — momentarily keeping the score 2-0 in favor of Colts Neck. Najdzinowicz later saved a clean, close-range shot by Sean Moore in the 72nd to hold CBA’s deficit at 3-2.

Appel returned to the varsity team after playing academy soccer in each of the past two seasons and has been the missing piece to Colts Neck’s formation. He supplanted incumbent returnee Dan Ravelo, who has remained a senior captain and lived up to the billing, according to Collier, who called Revelo “the best captain I have ever had.”

“He has understood the situation from the very beginning and been a tremendous teammate ever since Justin took over,” Appel said. “It means a lot that Justin came back, because he is a difference-maker. He, along with Kyle and Sean, they’re difference-makers. Every good team needs at least one of them and I’ve got three.”

Colts Neck senior goalkeeper Josh Appel. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspimages.com) - Colts Neck vs. CBA

Colts Neck senior goalkeeper Josh Appel. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspimages.com)

Colts Neck’s defense benefitted from the attackers keeping the Colts honest on that end of the field and the Cougars back four of Younger, Spencer, Sebastian Failla and Josh Katsnelson disrupted CBA enough to prevent the Colts from creating a dangerous chance against Appel in the final 20 minutes. CBA had 11 corner kicks through the first 58 minutes, but manufactured only one the rest of the way.

“If it’s a 3-2 game, these guys want to win it, 4-2 or 5-2 or 6-2,” Collier said. “If I taught them how to correctly park the bus, they would probably have half as many goals this year. The last thing I’m going to do is to teach the Moore brothers how not to attack.”

Saturday completed an impressive run by Colts Neck to the SCT championship that included wins over four teams ranked in the current Shore Sports Insider Top 10: No. 2 Manalapan, No. 4 Manasquan, No. 7 Ocean and No. 3 CBA.

“I think it was the greatest possible bracket we could get into, because all last year, a lot of people told us that we both (Kyle and Sean) scored 20 goals each and we have an easy schedule, we have an easy this or an easy that. No one can say that any more. We played the hardest teams in the Shore and we won a championship.”

A year ago, many of the same players were in the same spots in the lineup, but it did not yield similar results. Colts Neck went 10-5 and while the Cougars led the Shore Conference with 65 goals scored, they also conceded 35 in 15 matches. Their Shore Conference Tournament ended with a 5-2 loss to Toms River East at home in the round of 16 and Colts Neck was eliminated by Steinert in the sectional quarterfinals of the NJSIAA Central Group III Tournament by a 5-3 score.

The defense and Appel have been the major upgrades to the roster, but Collier has seen improvements across the board.

“It’s maturity,” Collier said. “Everyone has taken a year to get better and just grow more mature.”

With its championship victory over CBA, Colts Neck also continues its unbeaten season, which moved to 17-0-1 through 18 games. Colts Neck is likely to add a game this coming week to prepare for the NJSIAA Tournament, which will begin on Nov. 5 with the Cougars as the No. 1 seed in Central Jersey Group III section.

Colts Neck has not returned to a state final since its 2000 Group I championship and if the Cougars can avoid a loss next week and claim its first state title in 23 years, they will become the first boys public school program in the Shore Conference to win its division, the Shore Conference Tournament and an overall group championship during an undefeated season. Multiple teams have won all three titles and Holmdel finished 22-0-1 in 2018 while losing the SCT semifinals on penalties, but no Shore Conference team outside of CBA has accomplished both simultaneously.

“It means a lot for me, personally, given that these things don’t come along very often,” Collier said. “After 27 years, that’s pretty good.”

 

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