As pressure mounts, No. 1 St. Benedict’s continues march toward state title defense

The win was nice, but St. Benedict’s was left wanting more after beating Seton Hall Prep, 1-0, in the semifinals of the Essex County Tournament.

The No. 1 ranked Gray Bees felt they played better than that scoreline indicated and in a rematch with the No. 14 ranked Pirates on Monday in the North, Non-Public A semifinals, they got a chance to show that with a 5-1 win at Rutgers-Newark.

“The first time, when we played them in the counties, the score line didn’t reflect our performance,” St. Benedict’s coach Jim Wandling said. “I thought that was a relatively dominant performance from us the first time around, but we didn’t get the goals to necessarily decide the game and put ourselves in a position where we were safe.”

After knocking on the door and exerting its play style on the game early, St. Benedict’s finally broke through with 18:58 left in the first half thanks to one of three goals by Amadou Hann and the Gray Bees never looked back after that.

And while Hann was in top form and once again garnered much of the attention, coach Jim Wandling stressed Hann’s performances are often a reflection on something much larger.

“What we talk about is that Amadou is the guy that’s going to collect the goals. But it’s about the football that we play that sets Amadou up to score those goals,” Wandling said. So our goals are a celebration of our team football, right? Amadou is going to be the leading goal scorer on our team, rightfully so, you know. But every goal he scores is a reflection of the hard work that the guys behind him put in.”

Helping to lead the charge in the middle of the park for the Gray Bees and set Hann up to be in prime position to score is senior captain Bruno Nogareda, who was all over the field for the Gray Bees and did a bit of everything holding down the middle.

While a steady presence at midfield for St. Benedict’s, he saw his role and responsibilities evolve a bit as the game progressed, as St. Benedict’s adjusted its style to better prepare for Seton Hall.

“I feel like we approached the game differently this time,” Nogareda said. “We played a lot more through runs. We’ve been practicing for this game for a week now, and we kind of knew how they were going to set up. They were going to drop back and look for counters. I feel like our movement in the midfield, it kind of disorganized them in the middle, so every time I had the ball, I had space to take or I had an open pass. So I feel like the tactics that we’ve been training with our week finally paid off.”

Another driver in the midfield for the Gray Bees was senior Godson Anim, who has two goals and 12 assists this year and is the top distributor on the team and he’s also been a key to Benedict’s hitting its peak at the right time.

“We just have to keep working hard, be consistent and stick to our game plan,” Anim said. “It’s not every time that you’re going to have your best game, but today we did our job.”

St. Benedict’s jumped out to a 3-1 halftime lead with Seton Hall Prep’s lone goal coming on an own goal late in the first half and St. Benedict’s added two goals late in the second half, including one with one second left.

Still, Pirates coach Marty Berman, who has 579 wins to his credit knows that Monday’s result doesn’t define his team’s season or the careers of his seniors.

“Obviously, it’s what we’re trying to get across at the end here. I think they know it even today. Throw out the final score. I thought we played a lot better today than we did the county semifinal,” Berman said. “In that one, they had a bunch of shots, but just missed a lot of chances. Today they got their chances and they put them in, but we actually passed the ball and played more courageously with the ball. And I was really proud of that. We defended really well. They’ve got some great players.”

The job isn’t done for St. Benedict’s as the Gray Bees are looking to complete another unbeaten season and hoist another Non-Public A title. They’ll have to get past Delbarton on Thursday in the North, Non-Public A final.

And while the approach at St. Benedict’s is to only treat the game directly in front of them as the most important, Nogareda and his teammates are keenly aware of what’s at stake.

“That’s what we tak about before every game for the seniors, it could be our last game,” Nogareda said. “So we come out, we show everything we got go 110% and it paid off.