Manasquan Dominates Somerville For Trip To Sectional Semifinals

Photos above from Saturday's win over Somerville

SEA GIRT – The Manasquan boys’ lacrosse team methodically took apart a very good Somerville team outplaying them in every phase of the game en route to a 15-7 win over the ninth-seeded Pioneers in a NJSIAA South Group II quarterfinal match.

The top-seeded Warriors (16-4) now head into the semifinals for the first time in program history and will face fifth-seeded Hopewell Valley (10-9) who destroyed No.4 seed Ocean Township 16-6 advancing into this week’s quarterfinal game against Manasquan.

“Today we set the programs win record and got the furthest in the states; it’s a nice one-two on a day,” Manasquan head coach Sean Cunningham said. “It’s all for naught if we don’t take care of business down the stretch but it’s certainly something that these kids earned and it’s a nice accomplishment that at the end of the year you can hang your hat on.”

Somerville took an early 1-0 lead three minutes into the contest for what turned out to be their only lead of the game. Freshman attacker Canyon Birch then scored back-to-back goals getting an assist from his older brother Jarrett on his second goal for 2-1 lead with 5:54 remaining in the first quarter.

Following Birch's two goals, the Warriors missed a couple of scoring chances but with 40 seconds remaining in the quarter Jarrett Birch found Pat Feldstedt who slipped the ball past Somerville goalie A.J. Quade for a 3-1 lead as the quarter ended.

“This is the furthest we’ve gone in program history so that’s a big thing for us,” said Jarrett Birch who leads the team in goals scored with 68 and is second in assists with 28. “After losing to Rumson in the semifinals it was a tough loss for us but we knew we had to forget about it because we could possibly see them again in the state finals.”

Manasquan lost to Rumson-Fair Haven 8-5 in the Shore Conference Tournament final last week and with the Bulldogs being the No.2 seed in the South Group II bracket as well, the two schools are on a collision course to meet in finals if both win, as expected, their semifinal games.

The two teams traded goals to start the second quarter with Canyon Birch giving the Warriors a 4-1 lead at 11:42 before the Pioneers Ryan Pedrani got one back less than a minute later.

It remained that way until the 3:27 mark of the second quarter when Felstedt scored unassisted for a 5-2 lead. The Warriors then pushed the lead to four goals on Devon Carroll’s 23rd goal of the season with less than a minute to play in the half.

The Warriors then seemingly let their guard down allowing Somerville to score just 30 seconds later to pull to within 6-3 at the half.

Manasquan’s Matt Thermann won the faceoff battle 7-4 in the first half then in the second half he was a monster in the circle. He won all 13 draws for a huge advantage that showed up on the scoreboard as the Warriors outscored the Pioneers in the third quarter 4-1 to seize control of the game.

“Matt figured it out in the second half, got everything going and dominated,” Cunningham said. “He was winning every draw and that was the ability to kind of go make-it-take-it, which was huge for us.”

In that decisive third quarter, John Moran, Carroll, Paul Krueger and Canyon Birch all scored increasing the lead to 10-4 with Canyon Birch assisting on Kruger’s goal and Felstedt getting credit for an assist on Birch’s goal.

Pedrani scored to open the fourth but the Warriors responded quickly scoring five straight goals to put the game way out of reach before the Somerville added two meaningless goals in the final two minutes.

Lost in Manasquan’s offensive explosion was the tremendous job the defense did on the high-scoring Somerville offense.

Led by defensemen Kyle LeBlanc, Edmond Mallet and Jack Fabean along with defensive middies Conor Kinneally and Brian Paturzo and goalie Tom Pollock the Warriors were virtually impenetrable with Somerville’s goals all seemingly coming on momentary breakdowns in communication; a glitch easily fixable.

It’s that old cliché, “defense wins championship”,” Cunningham said. “They’re comfortable in both types of games. It doesn’t matter what speed the game is. If you want to run-and-gun us fine, play slow-down and methodical they’re great with doing that too. When you got defensive personal like we do and goal keepers doing what they do I don’t have to sweat it; they do a phenomenal job.”

Jarrett Birch had high praise for his defense as well. “Knowing that we have the defense that we do with a goalie that’s been standing on his head all season, it gives us a lot more confidence on the attack.”

Canyon Birch finished with five goals and an assist while his brother Jarrett added two goals and two assists. Carroll ended up scoring three goals while Felstedt and Krueger each had two goals with Feldstedt adding an assist and Moran chipping in with a goal.

“We practice what we’re going to do on offense every single day,” Birch added. “Coming up to a game we practice over-and-over-and-over what we’re going to do and how we’re going to play it. Once it comes to game time and we see what they’re running we know what we’re going to do like the back of our hand always knowing where the other is going to be.”

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