By Jim Hintelmann
RUMSON – When Shore Regional’s J.T. Kessler, the area’s leading boys soccer scorer, saw that Rumson-Fair Haven was playing him straight up in Saturday’s non-division battle, he knew that he would have a good game.
Kessler scored four goals to help the unbeaten Blue Devils (16-0) to an impressive 5-2 victory over the Bulldogs. The goals gave him 28 for the season and 84 for his varsity career.
“When I saw the way they were playing me, I knew that there would be plenty of open spaces,” said Kessler. “We just had to win some 50-50 balls and start scoring.”
It wasn’t the first time that Kessler scored four goals. He scored four against Asbury Park and East Brunswick Tech last year.
“Kessler scored 30 goals and had 20 assists last year,” said Shore coach Christian Pontier, “but he is more unselfish this year and it opens things up for Dante Montesinos, who has also had a big year.
“J.T. is a very confident player and once he gets going, he is hard to stop,” said Pontier.
Shore’s defending NJSIAA Central Jersey Group I champions won a school record 22 games last year and Pontier is looking for an even better season this year.
“We’re the top seed in our group,” said Pontier, “and I would like play at home in most of our post-season games this season. Last year we lost to Haddon Township in the state semifinals.”
Rumson’s Jamie Martin and Kessler traded goals off penalty kicks in the first half but Rumson (13-2) took a 2-1 lead nine minutes into the second half on a goal from five yards out by Matt Maisti.
The rest of the game belonged to Kessler, who scored three straight goals in a 12-minute span to put the Blue Devils up, 4-2.
“We were confident that we could come back,” said Pontier. “We have two explosive players in Kessler and Montesinos.”
Shore tied the game at 2-2 when Kessler took a feed from Steve Johnson and kicked the ball into the right corner of the net from 20 yards out.
“I felt that once we got the tying goal, they wouldn’t be able to keep us out of the net for too long,” said Pontier.
Kessler scored the tie-breaking goal with a direct kick from about 20 yards out, and then added an insurance goal minutes later with a 14-yard kick.
Johnson closed out the scoring with seven minutes remaining with Matt Duntra having the assist.
Kessler has two regular season games remaining and, with the Shore Conference and state tournaments remaining, has a chance to reach 100 goals for his four-year varsity career.
Saturday’s game matched two division champions with Shore winning the B Central title while Rumson, whose only other loss was an upset to Holmdel, was the A Central title winner.
