East Brunswick High School athletics · Sunday, Sept. 13 – Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026
Fifteen varsity contests and a conference cross country championship. This was the biggest week of the fall so far, and the Bears came out of it with nine wins and six losses.
Two of those wins belonged to a girls soccer team that had not won at all this season — and one of them was a 6-3 afternoon that produced more goals in a single game than the team had scored in its first five put together. Field hockey won twice more without conceding, girls tennis won three more matches without losing one, and boys soccer won back-to-back games for the first time this year. On Saturday morning at Thompson Park, both cross country teams finished in the top three of their division at the GMC championship.
Here’s how it went, sport by sport.
Girls Soccer: Five Losses, Then Everything at Once
Kevin Brady’s team lost its first five games and scored one goal doing it. Then came Thursday and Saturday.
The week started the hard way. Old Bridge, still unbeaten, won 1-0 at East Brunswick on Tuesday, scoring in the 35th minute. Caylin Docherty saved eight of the nine shots Old Bridge put on target — the one that beat her decided the game.
Thursday was the breakthrough. Lauren Baker scored in the 35th minute, set up by Samantha Baker, and East Brunswick beat Monroe 1-0 for its first win of the season. Docherty made eight saves for the shutout, and the Bears put eleven shots on goal to Monroe’s eight.
Then Saturday morning at Iselin Kennedy, a season’s worth of finishing arrived at once.
East Brunswick won 6-3. The Bears scored three times in the first half and three more in the second. Lauren Baker finished with three goals and an assist. Samantha Baker scored twice and set up another. Scarlet Barrero scored one and assisted one, Ella McDonnell supplied two assists, and Ximena Gonzalez Plumacher added one. Every East Brunswick goal was assisted — six goals, six assists, five players with a point.
Put the two wins together and the arithmetic is striking. East Brunswick scored one goal in its first five games and seven in its next two. Lauren Baker scored four of them in three days.
Docherty’s season now reads 46 saves from the 52 shots on target she has faced. The Bears are 2-5 and go to Sayreville on Sept. 22.
Field Hockey: Five Games, Five Shutouts, Six Shots Faced
Danielle Bradley’s team is 5-0, 4-0 in the GMC Red, and has not been scored on yet.
Tuesday at Old Bridge, Rachel Gerould scored both goals — one in the first quarter, one in the fourth from Logan Hooper’s assist — in a 2-0 win. Old Bridge’s goalkeeper made twelve saves, which tells you where that afternoon was played. At the other end, Reagan Umbach faced two shots on goal all game and saved both.
Thursday was more emphatic. East Brunswick beat South Plainfield 4-0, scoring in three different quarters. Gerould scored twice again, Hooper scored, and Alexa DeRado added the fourth. Umbach was not called on to make a save.
The season numbers are the story here. Five games, five wins, five shutouts, 22 goals scored and none allowed. Across those five games opponents have managed six shots on goal in total — and Umbach has saved every one of them.
Gerould has eight goals in five games, four of them this week. Hooper has four goals and three assists and has scored in four of the five. DeRado has three goals.
The Bears are at Monroe on Sept. 22.
Girls Tennis: Three More Matches, Three More Wins, and 84 Games to 1
Cory Widmaier’s team won all three of its matches and is 8-0, 6-0 in the GMC Red. It won 14 of the 15 flights it played this week.
Old Bridge came in on Tuesday and lost 5-0. Arya Joshi had the hardest afternoon of anyone, taking the first set in a tiebreak, 7-6, before closing it out 6-4 at first singles. Aiona Cheng and Kellyanne Mossi both won 6-0, 6-0, Kaitlin Wang and Prisha Patel won 6-0, 6-1 at first doubles, and Andrea Baraian and Kelsey Zhao took second doubles 6-1, 6-1.
Metuchen visited on Wednesday and also lost 5-0. Metuchen is 6-1 this season; the loss came at East Brunswick. The closest anyone got was at second doubles, where Baraian and Zhao dropped the second set and won it in a match tiebreak, 6-4, 4-6, 10-3.
Thursday at Monroe ended 4-1. Joshi won 6-4, 6-4, Wang and Patel won 6-0, 6-0, Baraian and Zhao won 6-0, 6-1, and Mossi won 6-0, 6-0 at second singles. Mahika Sathe lost at third singles, 4-6, 3-6 — East Brunswick’s only flight loss of the week.
And then there is Kellyanne Mossi’s season, which is becoming genuinely remarkable.
Mossi played three matches this week and won all three 6-0, 6-0 — thirty-six games to none. Over the season she has played seven matches, won all fourteen sets she has contested, and won 84 games while losing one. Six of the seven matches were 6-0, 6-0.
Wang and Patel are 8-0 at first doubles — they have won in every match East Brunswick has played. Cheng won both her matches this week without dropping a game.
East Brunswick is at Wardlaw-Hartridge on Sept. 23.
Cross Country: Second and Third at the Division Championship
Saturday morning brought the GMC Divisional Championship to Thompson Park, and East Brunswick’s Varsity Red runners finished near the front of both fields.
The boys placed third of six teams with 68 points, behind J.P. Stevens (37) and South Brunswick (47). Raphael Bostan led the Bears home in seventh, in 16:50.70, with Raghu Moorthy ninth in 16:56.89. Aryan Nayak, a ninth-grader, was East Brunswick’s third runner, finishing thirteenth in 17:06.27, and Joel Sahayajayaseelan (19th, 17:26.83) and Cameron Zhou (20th, 17:35.89) completed the scoring five. Forty-five seconds covered East Brunswick’s first five runners — the kind of pack finish that wins cross country meets.
The girls placed second of the five scoring teams with 65 points, behind South Brunswick. Sabrina Ivy, also a ninth-grader, was the first Bear across in eighth place, in 21:05.89. Laura Sisule was tenth in 21:38.91, Maxene Nono sixteenth in 22:22.95, Ella Ly twenty-first in 23:11.17 and Umeed Asghar twenty-third in 23:45.37.
There was more further down the card. East Brunswick won the boys junior varsity race with 23 points, and Aviral Agarwal won it outright in 17:32.06, with Jonah Anestis second, Landon Ricaurte fourth, Patrick Lally seventh and Aidan Fong ninth. Coraline Dominique won the girls junior varsity 5,000 meters in 23:15.36. In the freshmen two-mile races, Sara York was third in 15:38.12 and Arjun Namasivayam eighth in 11:52.36.
Next on the schedule is the Shore Coaches Invitational at Holmdel on Oct. 3.
Boys Soccer: Two Wins at Home, and Back to Even
Terry McKibbin’s side won twice at the stadium this week and is 3-3, 3-1 in the GMC. They are the first back-to-back wins of East Brunswick’s season.
Tuesday against New Brunswick was a comeback. The visitors scored twice in the first half. East Brunswick scored four times in the second and won 4-2. Kyrillos Michael scored twice, Giovanny Sousa scored, and Mateo Dela Cruz scored and set one up. Temi Koiki, Kareem Amer and Sean Enda each supplied an assist — four goals, four assists, six players with a point. Rosario Volino made eight saves.
Thursday against St. Joseph (Met.) was tighter and ran the other way round. It was scoreless at half-time, St. Joseph scored in the 42nd minute, and East Brunswick answered twice to win 2-1. Michael scored again and set up Amer for the other. Volino saved six of the seven shots St. Joseph put on target.
That is fourteen saves in two wins for Volino, and three goals in two games for Michael. Old Bridge visits on Sept. 22.
Girls Volleyball: The First Sets of the Season
Andrew Chup’s team played three matches and lost all three, and the record reads 0-8. But something did change this week: East Brunswick won the first sets of its season, and won one in two of the three matches.
Monday against Notre Dame, the Bears lost the first set 25-16, won the second 26-24, and lost the third 25-21. The serving was the reason it was close. East Brunswick served fifteen aces. Isabella Villatoro had seven of them along with eight digs, Danielle Manning had eight kills, five aces and eight digs, Maya Zernitsky set up nine of the team’s eighteen assists, Eva Munoz dug nine balls, Ava Catanho hit four kills and Gabriella Pagan blocked two.
Tuesday against Mother Seton was the toughest of the three, a 25-16, 25-9 loss. Munoz recorded thirteen digs — more than half the team’s twenty-three. Gwyneth Macke had three kills and two blocks, and Manning served three aces.
Thursday against Piscataway, East Brunswick took the opening set 27-25 before losing the next two. Manning finished with nine kills, more than any player in the match. Addyson Danchak had three blocks, as many as anyone on the floor, plus three aces. Zoe Holeman set up eighteen of the team’s twenty-four assists, Munoz added ten digs, Catanho hit six kills, and Villatoro had four kills and eight digs.
Across the three matches Munoz dug 32 balls and Villatoro served eight aces, and the team served 23 aces in all. Ridge visits on Sept. 23.
Gymnastics: A Hard Meet at Old Bridge
Allyson McMahon’s team lost its first meet of the season on Thursday, 101.65 to 97.2 at Old Bridge, and is 1-1. Old Bridge’s Mikayla Martins won all four events, which is a good part of the explanation for the margin.
East Brunswick’s best work came on floor and vault. Isabella Wasserman posted 8.85 on floor and 8.7 on vault, the second-highest score of the meet on both. Caroline Surabian scored 8.675 on floor and 7.975 on bars. Alexandra Cooperman’s 8.05 on bars was second only to Martins, and she added 8.625 on vault. Eleanor Kim vaulted 8.45, Ellah Levi scored 8.35 on vault, 8.2 on floor and a team-best 7.5 on beam, and Grace McVicar contributed 8.1 on vault and 8.0 on floor.
South Plainfield visits on Sept. 24.
Football: A Shutout at Monroe
Zack Gega’s team went to Monroe on Friday night and lost 28-0. Monroe scored fourteen points in the first quarter and added a touchdown in each of the last two.
East Brunswick is 2-2 and hosts Voorhees on Sept. 25.
The Week in Full
| Sport | Result | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Girls Tennis | W 5-0 vs. Old Bridge (9/15) · W 5-0 vs. Metuchen (9/16) · W 4-1 at Monroe (9/17) | 8-0 |
| Field Hockey | W 2-0 at Old Bridge (9/15) · W 4-0 vs. South Plainfield (9/17) | 5-0 |
| Boys Soccer | W 4-2 vs. New Brunswick (9/15) · W 2-1 vs. St. Joseph (Met.) (9/17) | 3-3 |
| Girls Soccer | L 0-1 vs. Old Bridge (9/15) · W 1-0 vs. Monroe (9/17) · W 6-3 at Iselin Kennedy (9/19) | 2-5 |
| Cross Country | GMC Divisional Championship, Thompson Park (9/19) — boys 3rd, girls 2nd in Varsity Red | — |
| Gymnastics | L 97.2-101.65 at Old Bridge (9/17) | 1-1 |
| Girls Volleyball | L 1-2 vs. Notre Dame (9/14) · L 0-2 vs. Mother Seton (9/15) · L 1-2 vs. Piscataway (9/17) | 0-8 |
| Football | L 0-28 at Monroe (9/18) | 2-2 |
Go Bears.
