Bears stake their claim as league champs
BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer

There’s some debate as to who the 2005 GMC champion in girls field hockey should be.

East Brunswick believes it’s them, especially after the Lady Bears won the GMC postseason tournament, also known as the Marcia Westaby Tournament, with a thrilling 2-1 victory over Sayreville in the finals Saturday at neutral Monroe High School.

But Sayreville feels it can also lay claim to the conference crown after winning the regular-season championship, and beating out runner-up East Brunswick by one point to do it.

Then there are people like Cindi Todoroff, the veteran East Brunswick coach. She feels it doesn’t matter whether one team wins the regular season and another captures the post-season tournament. In her mind, they’re both pretty impressive accomplishments.

And she should know. Now in her 25th season, Todoroff has won both on different occasions, and in 2001 her team captured the regular-season title and the postseason tournament.

“As coaches, I think in our minds for a team to win the division is incredible,” Todoroff said. “You have to get your kids up 14 games, and to win the title is a huge accomplishment. We’ve won that a couple of times and there’s a lot of pride to that.

“But it’s a little different story in the kids’ mind,” she continued. “They see a tournament that goes on all week, and it’s a big thing to win a tournament. So in a lot of people’s minds that’s the league champion.

“But like I said, they’re both pretty special.”

This year’s tournament crown was even more special for Todoroff and her players because they had lost both regular-season meetings with Sayreville, 2-1 in overtime and then 2-1 again in regulation.

Coming into this week, the Bears’ only other loss on their 14-3 ledger came against another GMC foe, South Plainfield, who beat East Brunswick 3-2 in overtime. So all three of the Bears’ losses were by one goal and two of them came in overtime.

“And for the South Plainfield game and the second Sayreville game we had some injuries and didn’t have a full team,” Todoroff said.

In the eight-team tournament, East Brunswick was the No. 2 seed and beat No. 7 Metuchen 2-0 in the quarterfinals, although Todoroff said it wasn’t easy.

“It took two perfect goals to beat them,” she said. “We also beat them 3-1 and 1-0 during the season, but those were both tough games, too. So we had our work cut out all three times we played them.”

That set up a semifinal date with third-seed South Plainfield, which was supposed to be played on Wednesday at East Brunswick. But rain and field conditions forced the game to be played on Thursday and moved to SPHS.

But the Bears showed their intestinal fortitude by rallying twice on the road from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits to tie it 2-2 at the end of regulation. Then a minute into sudden death overtime, East Brunswick was awarded a penalty stroke and Kathleen Leone converted to give the Bears an exciting 3-2 win.

That set the stage for a third meeting against Sayreville, and this time the Bears would prevail. But they had to come from behind again. East Brunswick thought it had scored the game’s first goal on a corner, but the officials ruled the shot came from just outside the circle, and the goal was disallowed.

Then less than two minutes later, Sayreville found the back of the net to take a 1-0 lead.

Two sequences like that would be enough to rip the heart out of most teams, but not East Brunswick. Instead, it lighted a fire under them, and one minute later the Bears notched the tying goal.

“So in three minutes there were three goals scored, one that was disallowed and two that counted,” Todoroff said.

And despite controlling most of the first half, the score was tied 1-1 at the break.

But then just 10 minutes into the second half, East Brunswick’s Katie Colchie snapped the deadlock with a goal to make it 2-1. The Bears’ defense did the rest as it held Sayreville’s usually potent offense in check the entire second half to preserve the lead, and the tournament championship.

“The nice thing is teams we lost to during the season — South Plainfield and Sayreville — we ended up beating in the tournament,” Todoroff said. “It’s like we went back and cleaned up our mess. We had some unfinished business to take care of.”

The other nice thing is in each of the last three years, East Brunswick was knocked off in the first round of the tournament, and each time by a 1-0 score.

“The last time we won a tournament game before this year was 2001 when we went 18-2-1 and won the conference championship and the tournament,” Todoroff said. “So this year’s team did it for all the seniors that came before them. They wanted to get over that first-round psychological thing.”

The Bears didn’t have much time, however, to celebrate their title. On Tuesday night, they had a non-league game at New Egypt High School against the No. 3 team in the state.

“They’ve gone to the Group I semifinals the last three years and are one of the best teams again this year,” Todoroff noted. “We were supposed to play them earlier, but we got rained out and I didn’t want to lose the game. We like to put ourselves out there against a team like that. It preps us for the states.

“We ran with them for a while, but then they scored three quick goals and beat us 3-0.”

The Bears will find out soon enough how much it helped them prep for the state tournament. East Brunswick, seeded fourth in North 2 Group IV, opens play tomorrow at 2 p.m. with a home game against No. 5 Morris Knoll.

Last year, the Bears made an early exit, losing 1-0 in double overtime to Hillsborough in the opening round.

“Some kids on the team remember that, which makes them more motivated this year,” Todoroff said. “The seniors who were on the team last year have mentored the younger players.”

East Brunswick has 11 seniors on its roster, including tri-captains Christine Buszczak and Colchie on the forward line, and Leone at center midfield.

“She’s the brains of the operation,” Todoroff said of Leone’s play at midfield.

Other forwards include Lauren Caruso, another senior who “has come on strong the last two weeks,” Jessica Tod and Caty Toto, who rotate in, and Rebecca Gross.

Joining Leone at midfield are senior Danielle Nicosia on the right side and junior Christine Kamiecik on the left, while Mia Marciante and Jamie Kinard are the right and left backs, respectively, and Sarah Gross starts at sweeper.

Jessica Grader, Judy Lynn and Sarah Silver also see time back there.

Michele Epstein has seen most of the action in goal for the Bears, although Carolina Marrero and Carly Weinreb have also seen varsity time.

“I’m fortunate that I have three goalies, and they’re all very talented,” Todoroff said.

And with one championship already in the bag, East Brunswick is ready to begin its quest for a second one.

“There’s some great competition out there,” Todoroff concluded, “but if we could get on a run and win six more games we can win the states.”

And this time there wouldn’t be any debate who the real champion is.