Brookdale men’s team falls in national soccer final
By tim morris
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY Brookdale Community College’s goalie Emanuel Zeon makes a tough save in net during a recent practice in the Lincroft section of Middletown.

Ten games into the season, Scott Baker had seen enough. The first-year coach of the Brookdale Community College men’s soccer team had just watched his team lose to Union, 2-0, to fall to 6-4 on the season.

What’s more, it was a Garden State Athletic Conference game and capturing the GSAC title was one of the Jersey Blues’ goals for the season. Already, they were playing catch-up and, perhaps worse, not playing to their talent.

"After that loss to Union, the next day in practice I said, ‘That’s our last loss of the season. I’ll take responsibility for the loss,’" he said. "We had focused all year on hitting our peak at the end of the season and we were not performing on the field.

"I made our preparation and practice more intense," he said.

CHRIS KELLY Brookdale Community College’s Helio Guimares works on his footwork during a recent practice.

Whether or not Baker really expected that his team could go through the remainder of the 2002 season unbeaten isn’t important. But what is is that he struck the right note with his team and the Jersey Blues did not lose another game in the regular season, making Baker look like a genius. The Blues went on to win the Region XIX and District 4 championships to boot. That 9-0-1 run put them in last weekend’s National Junior College Athletic Association Division III National Championships at Nassau, Garden City, N.Y., for the first time in school history.

The Jersey Blues defeated Manchester CC, Conn., 1-0, on a Luis Vaz goal in the 78th minute of play.

In the national final, Brookdale lost to Richland, Texas, the No. 2 ranked team in the country, 4-0. That snapped Brookdale’s unbeaten streak at 11 games and they ended the season 16-5-1.

"That loss to Union was a wake-up call," said Baker, whose team climbed to the No. 5 ranking in the nation after winning the Region title. "Everything has come together and we hit our peak at the right time."

There were many reason for Brookdale’s 6-4 start, beginning with adjusting to a new coach and the new coach adjusting to his players. Baker tried players at different positions and new formations to come up with the right chemistry.

The key for Baker was selling his approach to the players. His goal was not to have his team in peak shape in September only to have them with tired legs in late-October and November when the post-season begins. He also had to have players willing to play out of position to benefit the team.

One was Emmanuel Zeon, who had never played goal before. Baker wanted to take advantage of his athleticism and the move paid off with Zeon garnering All-Region XIX honors.

Every move Baker has made has turned to gold because his team played its best ball at the end of the season. By playing everyone, the team is that much deeper.

Tri-captains Christopher Amato, Zeon and Luis Vaz are given credit by Baker with convincing the others on the team that he was on the right track.

"I was very lucky to walk into a situation with leaders like my tri-captains," he said. "They are quality people as well quality players and they bought into what I wanted to do.

"One of the things we decided was to find out where people work the best for the team," he added. "I wanted to use every kid’s strength."

That approach produced.

"One thing going for us is our overall balance," Baker said. "We’re balanced enough that we can play our system and make other teams adjust to us. We are the team on the attack."

Dan Pereira and Vaz are among the leading scorers in the nation with Pereira at 30 points (11 goals, eight assists) and Vaz at 29 (10 goals, nine assists). Midfielder Helio Guimares is at 20 (seven goals, six assists) and while Gregg Cohen, 15 (five goals, five assists) and Rob Whyte, 11 (four goals, three assists) see to it that teams can’t mark just one or two players and shut the offense down.

Outside back Rich Frye is an example of a player who changed positions to strengthen the team. He moved from midfield to defense, where he has provided just what the team needed back there, a steady defender who can make the transition to offense.

When everything fell into place, the Blues rolled through the rest of the regular season undefeated and managed to come from behind and win their first GSAC title in 20 years. That was just the beginning.

The momentum continued in the Region playoffs where, first up, the Blues avenged their loss to Union by besting them 1-0 on a goal 9:00 into the game by Dan Pereira assisted by Vaz. Zeon stopped six shots to get the shut-out.

That semi-final win in Brookdale sent the Blues to Middlesex Community College for the Region championship where Keystone, out of La Plum, Pa., the No. 3-ranked team in the country, was waiting.

Pereira and Vaz each scored a goal and Zeon made 12 saves in net, many of them spectacular, and the Blues prevailed, 2-1.

The Brookdale train kept rolling on Nov. 4 when the Blues hosted the District 4 championships and defeated Montgomery College (Rockville, Md.), 2-1, in a shoot-out to advance to the NJCAA Final Four. The teams played to a 1-1 tie through regulation and overtime before the shoot-out was required to see who advanced. Guimares’ goal in the 79th minute of the match from Pereira knotted the score at 1-1 for Brookdale.

Coaches generally don’t like shoot-outs as a method to determine a match’s winner. Baker, however, had every reason to believe that the edge was with his club because of Zeon.

"I was 100 percent confident," he said.

Zeon came up with back-to-back saves and Frye, Vaz, Guimares and Brian Eichenberg went 4-4 and Brookdale won, 4-2.

The 2002 Jersey Blue are: Amato, Augosto Aquino, Rodalbert Boyer, Diego Buritica, Francisco Chevez, Cohen, Pete Cueva, Eichenberg, Fraley, Frye, Guimares, Christopher Hoening, Chris Howard, Ricardo Adrian Lopez, Vincenzo Passalacqua, Joao Pereira, Dan Pereira, Alhassan Quaye, Vaz, Whyte, Manuel Zambrano and Zeon.

At the National Championships, Guimares, Dan Pereira and Frye were named to the All-Tournament Team.