Bridgewater-Raritan Boys' Soccer Team Are Somerset County Champions

BRIDGEWATER, NJ — Bridgewater-Raritan High School boys' soccer team was named Somerset County Champions.

For the first time since 2011, second-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan won the outright Somerset County title after a 4-1 victory in the title game over fourth-seeded Bernards High School on Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Nap Torpey Athletic Complex in Somerville.

The Panthers previously shared the 2017 Somerset County championship with the Pingry School.

Bridgewater-Raritan, which improved to 11-1-3 in 2022, won its first outright county title in 11 years.

After taking down Gill St. Bernard’s, 1-0, in the semifinal round, the Panthers drew a Mountaineers team in the title game that had allowed just five total goals in 2022 and pitched shutouts in 10 of their 11 last games.

The Panthers scored four goals, with three scores coming in the final 14 minutes of regulation, a surge against Bernards that nearly matched the Mountaineers’ entire amount of goals allowed in their previous 14 games.

Bridgewater-Raritan struck first in the 20th minute on a goal by Aidan Costa from Dylan Neno. However, the Mountaineers answered with a 37th-minute equalizer on a well-executed free kick from the corner flag by James Kolvites, whose ball was headed into the net by Greg Ferreira to knot the score at 1-1.

With 3:01 remaining in the first half, however, Bernards had to play with just 10 players due a Mountaineers player picking up his second yellow card: one of five yellow cards issued to Bernards in the contest.

After a deadlocked first 26 minutes of the second half, which included a diving save by Bernards goalkeeper Giancarlo Acosta on a penalty kick by the Panthers, Bridgewater-Raritan’s offense erupted late in regulation.

Zach Halpin kicked a ball straight through the Mountaineers defense to a running Jan Guanilo Morales, who scored the go-ahead breakaway goal in the 66th minute to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead and put Bridgewater-Raritan in front for good.

Morales then scored his game-high second goal just 5:18 later on a penalty kick in the 71st minute to double the Panthers’ lead, and on a rebound near the Bernards’ net in the 75th minute, Chris McKinney booted in the exclamation-point goal to seal Bridgewater-Raritan’s 4-1 victory.

Goalkeeper Juan Orozco made four saves for the Panthers, who outshot Bernards, 10-5, in the second half and 13-9 overall.

This press release was produced by the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.