Seton Hall Prep soccer team wins final two regular-season games; gears up for postseason

WEST ORANGE, NJ — The Seton Hall Prep soccer team won its final two regular-season home soccer games at Brendan P. Tevlin Memorial Field in West Orange last week to raise its record to 18-1-1 on the season.

On Monday, Oct. 21, the Pirates defeated Bloomfield, 5-0. Lucas Ross opened the scoring 6:16 into the match on assists by Aidan Dunphy and Jason Periera. In the second half they scored four goals. Ross scored again from Dunphy and Gio Amato, Pereira scored from Nick Palangio, David Schuster scored on a penalty kick, and Nick Georgiou scored assisted. Tomas Hut had one save and Aidan Batista had saves saves to record the shutout.

On Thursday, Oct. 24, the Pirates defeated Delran, 3-0. Dunphy opened the scoring on assists from Ross and Ryan Spezzacatena with 26:07 left in the first half. Just 1:01 later, Ross scored an unassisted goal on a bullet from 30 yards out. Ross then closed out the scoring later in the half on an assist by Dunphy. Hut and Batista each had three saves to record the clean sheet.

With these two shutouts, the Pirates have 17 shutouts for the season, which is a new school record. The old record of 16 was accomplished by the 2007 Pirates.

SHP, seeded No. 2, will host the winner of the Oratory and  Pope John match on Friday, Nov. 1, at 2 p.m. in the quarterfinal round of the NJSIAA Non-Public “A” State Tournament.

The Pirates are ranked in teh following polls: TopdrawerSoccer.Com: No. 31 in Fab 50, No. 7 in East Region, No. 4 in New Jersey. USA Today/United Soccer Coaches: No. 7 in Region III. Star-Ledger: No. 6 in New Jersey, No. 2 in Non-Public Schools, No. 1 in the Super Essex Conference.