Green edges out gold in BMHS alumni soccer game
BY WAYNE WITKOWSKI Staff Writer

BRICK TOWNSHIP — Time seemed to stand still for Jess Fuccello when she took the field for the Brick Memorial High School alumni soccer game at Veterans Memorial Middle School on Saturday.

J

ust as in her playing days for the

Mustangs, when she scored 32 goals in a season and 96 in her career, trailing only Crystal Petraccoro, Fuccello was a target player on the green team.

"Fuccello, Fuccello," many alumni on the sidelines yelled when other players brought the ball up the field.

And the players on the green team — who graduated in even years — got the message and directed many passes to Fuccello's feet.

Fuccello did not disappoint. She scored both goals in the green team's 2-1 victory over the gold team, made up of players who graduated in odd years.

The first goal was a beauty. Fuccello carried it down the left side of the field and fired it into the far side from about 16 yards out off a pass from Brianne Toomey, who just graduated and is heading to East Stroudsburg University, where she will continue her lacrosse career. The second goal was a blast from shorter range set up by Christina Cuffari, class of 2007, who is at the College of St. Rose.

It was important for Fuccello to play well. She missed playing for the University of Pennsylvania last season because of an injured right ankle, after she had led the team to the NCAA Tournament the previous season as the team's top scorer and was an All-Ivy League selection. The Quakers struggled in her absence.

"Oh, I'm very ready to play [this season]," Fuccello said enthusiastically, although she still keeps her ankle in a brace as a precaution. "It was so hard to sit out an entire season. I got hurt in preseason and they misdiagnosed it, and then I tried to come back in midseason and got hurt again right away. That was a challenge."

But Fuccello was in midseason form. And that impressed many alumnae who may have only heard about her and never saw her play. She also plays for the New Jersey Wildcats, who play in the Women's United Soccer League against teams from Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., as a semipro feeder to the professional women's league.

"This was great because I haven't seen a lot of people in a while," Fuccello said.

And in another month, she'll be heading back to Penn, where she hopes to help the Quakers rebound to a strong season.

"We should be really good," Fuccello said. "This year, we're ready to come back into the NCAA Tournament."

Caitlin Toomey, another Brick Memorial player in the alumnae game, is now team captain at Rowan University. She's looking to help her team get back into the NCAA Tournament in her fourth season starting on defense as an outside back. Toomey, the older sister of Brianne Toomey, helped the Profs finish unbeaten in the New Jersey Athletic Conference and earn an NCAA Tournament berth, which were firsts for the school.

"I think I've improved a lot since high school," said Toomey, who is one of three female siblings competing in college sports. "I've worked a lot in the offseason. You want to make everything better. The main thing I want to do back there is communicate. We're very strong on defense and lost only two players from last season."

The New Jersey Athletic Conference will have plenty of Brick players this year. Jackie Jannicky and Caitlin Conway are starting college careers at Kean, and Ann McCarthy is looking to help The College of New Jersey regain the top spot in the NJAC that it had held for most seasons prior to last year.

Like Fuccello, McCarthy, a sophomore, also came back from an injury. She suffered a sprained medial collateral knee ligament in the preseason and did not start at first when she came back. But she was well established at center halfback by the middle of the season. McCarthy helped to bring the team to the NCAA Division III Tournament Sweet 16 before it lost to Williams College.

"I think we'll be stronger and go father [in the NCAA Tournament] and hopefully win our conference," said McCarthy, who earned an NJAC Rookie of the Week award last season. "I'm mainly working on being fit for this season."

Another player who had some shining moments pushing the ball upfield in the alumnae game was Jourdan Thompson, who is playing soccer at IMG Academy in Sarasota, Fla.

"It's a pretty cool experience. Not a lot of schools do it," said Thompson, whose father, Calvin, urged her to play.

Another player who will be starting her college career this fall is goalie Amanda Simon, who was beaten by Fuccello for the deciding goal. She is going to Western Connecticut.