Longtime Christian Brothers boys soccer coach Tom Mulligan just had a feeling.
At the helm of the Colts for nearly the last decade and having seen plenty of soccer in his time as an assistant and beyond, including against his team’s opponent on Friday — No. 18 Colts Neck — Mulligan was certain of one thing.
“All week he said at practice it was going to be a three goal game,” CBA senior forward James Brady said. “Whether it was 3-0, 3-1, 3-2, it didn’t matter. We knew it would be a three goal game.”
As it turns out, Mulligan knows a thing or two as his calculus paid off. Brady opened the scoring for CBA thanks to his being in the absolute perfect spot and at the absolute perfect time to collect and bury a header 28 minutes into the game, putting CBA up 1-0 en route to a 3-2 win over Colts Neck.
“When I came off it was 1-0, and he was like, one’s not enough, we’ve got to get more,” Brady said.
The reason was simple. On the other side of the pitch roaming for Colts Neck was that program’s all-time leading scorer and a 2024 All-State player in Sean Moore. He had eight goals coming into Friday’s contest, including in last year’s Shore Conference Tournament final where Colts Neck downed CBA for Colts Neck’s first ever title.
“They had a good offense, so we needed insurance,” Brady said.
CBA got it in the first half, first when Justin Arias scored his first career goal to put CBA up 2-0.
That all important third goal Mulligan talked about came a few minutes later when Joe Guastella rocketed one from right inside the 18 to give CBA a 3-0 lead going into halftime.
“We knew this game is far from over, even when we’re up 3-0,” Brady said. “We talked about it. Let’s focus on the next rep.”
And while CBA knew how dangerous Moore was, they put one of their top defenders — Charlie Messano — on him and he was able to neutralize Moore, who seldom got the space to operate he’s accustomed to, resulting in only a handful of shots for Moore.
“He’s a good player, but he’s not their whole team,” Guastella said. “So we just had to focus on one player at a time. Everyone has a team and we knew they were a good team, so we weren’t focused only on one player.”
But when Colts Neck did opt to try and play through Moore, Messano and his defense were ready especially as Sean was without older brother Kyle, who he combined with for 50 goals last year.
“The plan wasn’t necessarily to man mark him, but stay around him the whole time,” Messano said. “We expected this to happen and they’d pass it and then try to kick it long into Sean. And I think it worked really well last year for them and that’s how we lost — because there was a dynamic duo in the front. Now there’s only one."
Even though Moore was held scoreless, Colts Neck’s 26th year head coach Art Collier, the only skipper in program history, wasn’t worried.
Through their first six games, Moore had scored eight of Colts Neck’s 10 goals entering Friday, including three game-winners in one goal contests.
But in the same way CBA knew what to expect from Colts Neck on offense, the same was true for Collier and Moore, who knew he’d be the target of the other team’s defense.
That’s why despite the loss, Collier was heartened that Colts Neck’s two second half goals didn’t come from Sean Moore, but first from Dylan Younger with 29:22 left and then from Gabe Kruglyansky with roughly 13 to play.
“It’s not only encouraging, it’s imperative. It has to happen,” Collier said. “When Sean is getting triple teamed, and when other guys are starting to put the ball back in the net, it’s only going to help him. It’s only going to help him get free and score.”
The Cougars had also seldom trailed and by such a large margin to start the season, but even that couple with the fact they were able to mount a comeback late, including some near misses in the waning minutes left Collier heartened.
“There’s a lesson to be learned in the fact that we were down 3-0 to a really good team, and we didn’t pack it in,” he said. “At the end of the game, obviously, there’s disappointment in the loss, but it’s about remembering that in the tournaments, what you have to do to stay in a game if you’re down 3-0 and knowing you still have a chance.”
The win was CBA’s seventh in a row and first over a ranked team so far this season and gives CBA the likely inside track to the No. 1 seed in this year’s Shore Conference Tournament.
But everyone in Lincroft knows championships are hardly won or lost in September.
So while Friday’s win was nice momentarily, it’s ultimately just one win in what the Colts hope will be a long line of bigger and bigger ones.
“We felt like we were being disrespected the beginning of the year,” Guastella said. “So we’ve worked hard for this. And yeah, we got the momentum, but the job’s not done.”