By Ryan Fennell
Neptune – The Christian Brothers Academy Colts (17-0) extended their perfect season and captured their second straight Shore Conference Boys Soccer Title in a 4-0 win over Holmdel at Summerfield School in Neptune on Sunday.
Holmdel needed to play near perfect soccer against CBA, an all-senior team that went 18-1-1 last season and has remained unbeaten in 36 straight contests, to have a chance at the title, but that ideal faded less than two minutes into the game.
At the 1:41 mark a shot by CBA’s Robert Cartas off a corner found its way past Holmdel keeper Mitch Walier when a Hornet player, attempting to clear the ball, redirected the shot for an own-goal and put the Colts up 1-0.
Almost exactly 10 minutes later a shot by CBA’s Matthew Jelinsky found the back of the net in nearly the same fashion.
And with two own-goals in the first 12 minutes, the Holmdel Hornets were down 2-0 to the powerhouse CBA Colts team.
“That was the strangest start of a game I’ve ever seen, giving up two own-goals,” said Holmdel head coach John Nacarlo. “I knew there was going to be nerves and I knew we had to weather the storm for the first 10 (minutes). It was just unfortunate to be in that situation.”
Nacarlo believed the two own-goals early in the match took the wind out of his team.
“Definitely. Without a doubt,” Nacarlo said.
Holmdel was also without junior Eric Bulvid who suffered a broken leg in the Hornets’ quarterfinal game against Lacey.
“The odds weren’t in our favor,” Nacarlo said. “We knew to have a chance we needed to keep them from scoring and we obviously were unable to do that.”
As for CBA, the SCT Championship was another milestone in an outstanding two-year run.
The Colts added a goal at 24:10 in the first off a through-ball by Alex Bialko that Jelinsky smashed into the upper right hand corner of the net. Jelinsky finished the Colts scoring at 16:48 in the second half when he intercepted a poor goal kick by Walier and sent it in unchallenged.
“It’s an all-senior team that was 18-1-1 last year and we just hoped that everything would work well this year,” said CBA head coach Dan Keane. “They set a goal to win the division, which they have and try to go through this tournament, which is hard. They won the Shore Conference Tournament today, which is great and now we look forward to whatever we can do in the states.”
As the number one seed, CBA received a first round bye in the NJSIAA Non-Public A South State Tournament bracket and doesn’t play again until Friday (Nov. 4).
CBA has been without its top players Scott Thomsen and Nick Villani for the last several games due to injuries and although Villani played in the SCT title game he is still battling his injuries.
Keane believes the time off should help his team.
“The rest is good for this team,” he said.
The Colts will take on Gloucester Catholic (8) in the quarterfinal round on Friday.
