FREEHOLD – Freehold Township ran its season-opening record to 6-0 with an 18-1 drubbing of Marlboro Wednesday as senior attackman Chris Novella had a monster game with six goals and five assists and sophomore attackman Brendan Doel added three goals and five assists to lead the rout.
The win lifts the Patriots’ division record to 3-0 and sets up a key Class A North match Saturday with undefeated Christian Brothers Academy in a battle for the division lead. The Colts (7-0, 3-0) are currently fourth in the state in the most recent NJ.com Top 10 and first in the Shore while the Patriots entered the week at No. 3 in the Shore.
Freehold Township’s hot start is one if not the biggest surprise as we enter the midway point of the lacrosse season. The Patriots had to replace three All-Shore players and two first-team All-Division selections, including attackman Drew Dunn, who finished third in the Shore in scoring with 93 points, second-team All-Shore midfielder Mike Ferdinandi and their two All-Shore defensemen, Shawn Poole and Keenan Murphy.
“We graduated five of our six top scorers and we’re a very young team and we were kind of inexperienced going into the season,” said Freehold Town ship head coach Ryan Eichner. “But those inexperienced guys are the same guys that are really working hard and winning those hustle plays and those effort plays and that’s what’s helping us win right now.”
Freehold Township did return a nice nucleus of players that they’ve been counting on to take the next step and those players have lived up to those expectations and more.
Novella leads the team with 16 goals and 12 assists after his explosion against Marlboro but has been consistent from the outset in his ability to score and leadership on and off the field, while Doel is second on the team with 10 goals and 13 assists.
“Chris is a very good player and even a better person,” Eichner said of his top scorer. “He’s one of our captains this year and on the field he leads by example. What I like about Chris so much is that he is scoring a lot of goals and does have a lot of points but more importantly he probably hustles more and gives more effort than anyone else on the field. He’s leading by example and a lot of our kids are following him and that’s really nice.”
Senior midfielder Matt Graybush is another returner who has taken his game to the next level this season. After netting seven goals and assisting on two a year ago, Graybush already has 11 goals this season with another three assists.
“Matt was a second-line midfielder for us last year and we moved him to attack this year,” said Eichner of Graybuch. “He really thrives in the role we’ve given him and he’s really having a very productive season so far. Matt, Brendan and Chris have all been big for us.”
After recording five goals and two assists as a sophomore last season junior midfielder Nick Elimanco has provided steady support while finding the back of net twice with an assist.
Senior Tom Hall and junior Evan Nastarowicz returned this season to anchor the defense after the departure of All-Shore defenseman Kennan Murphy and Shawn Poole.
“We graduated a bunch of our defense as well,” Eichner said of the inexperience on defense. “We’re playing two guys that didn’t really play to much last year but really our defense is what has been keeping us in games this year. Evan and Tom and Mike Farrell, who’s a freshman, are our three starting defenders along with T.J. Lindsey and Joel Maragoto and our defense has been leading the way this year.
“Because we graduated so much on the offense I knew we were going to have to play good defense in order to be a competitive team,” Eichner added. “But they’ve really stepped up. Mike’s just a freshman and I knew he was a good player but he’s really played way above expectations but really our defense has stepped up a lot this year.”
Junior Aiden Purcell has been stellar in goal this season after splitting time in the nets a year ago. In six games he’s allowed a mere 18 goals while turning away 75 shots.
In Freehold Township’s 6-5 overtime win versus Southern (6-1, 3-0) – ranked fourth in the Shore Conference – Purcell stopped a season-high 19 shots and in the Patriots’ 5-1 win over No. 6 Howell (5-2, 3-1) he turned away nine shots helping them get an important division win.
“Aiden kind of split time last year because of an injury but he came in this year as a junior and just grew up both physically and mentally from last year,” said Eichner of his goalie. “He just been outstanding for us.”
The Patriots finished ranked fourth in the Shore a year ago after reaching the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV semifinals for the first time in program history. They also made run into the Shore Conference Tournament quarterfinals before losing to nemesis CBA, 8-6.
With this group playing so well and starting to gel on both offense and defense, to the surprise of many, Freehold Township is in position to make another deep run in the postseason this year and Saturday’s game against the Colts will be a good barometer to gage just how good they are against the powerful Colts.
“CBA is very good,” said Eichner. “Last year the first game that we played was a close game and they kind of beat us in the final moment and they beat us in the SCT as well. So every year it’s a battle; it’s one of those rivalry games but they’re very good so we’re going to learn a lot about ourselves on Saturday.”
UPDATE: CBA broke open a 3-3 game at the half with six third-quarter goals and went on to a 10-3 win over Freehold Township on Saturday. The loss drops the Freehold Townships record to 6-1 and 3-1 in the A North. Novella had two first-half goals and Ryan O’Donoghue recorded his first varsity goal in the loss
.
- 2023 JSN Awards Finalists Announced - December 18, 2023
- Sunil Sunder Raj Recaps Day One of State Football Finals With OnNJ (VIDEO) - November 27, 2023
- Mental Health and Exercise: Finding Balance in New Jersey's Fast-Paced Life - November 27, 2023
