Saturday, September 29, 2007

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Kazim Uyaroglu assisted on Cliffside Park's second goal, the one that gave the Red Raiders a 2-1 win over Tenafly and an 8-0 start to its season.

CLIFFSIDE PARK -- There was certainly a buzz in the air at around 4:25 p.m. behind Cliffside Park High School on Friday afternoon. A big crowd had gathered complete with a base drum that would be beaten up over the next two hours, first place in the BCSL-American Division was on the line and rival Tenafly was in town to try to put an end to the home team's seven-game, season-opening winning streak.

And just 44 seconds after the opening whistle blew, it was clear that the Tigers had come to play.

The first time Tenafly gained possession in the game was when James McCarthy took control in the back. He started a run up the right side, beat a defender just before reaching midfield and created some separation, making it impossible for the Cliffside defense to stop the ball as he rushed forward. And before the Raiders could recover, McCarthy found a cutting Mark Prussin, who one-touched a delicate chip into the upper right hand corner of the net to give Tenafly (4-1-1) the earliest of leads.

“It was the best thing that could have happened to us,” said Cliffside Park head coach Jim Fucci. “Now if we don’t comeback and we lose that game 1-0, I don’t know if I could say the same thing, but with the way it turned out, them scoring early like that showed us that we had to pick it up and match what they brought the field today.”

Mark Prussin's goal gave Tenafly a lead just 44 seconds into the game.

Cliffside did match Tenafly’s goal with one of its own on a border line call and then got another from Hugo Sanchez 10:17 before halftime to close out the scoring in the Red Raiders’ 2-1 win that gives them an 8-0 record for the season and a stranglehold on first place in the Big School grouping of the BCSL-American.

While Fucci saw the early deficit as a blessing for his side, Tenafly head coach Bill Jaeger had the opposite take.

“That is always my worst nightmare and you see it happen in all kinds of sports,” said Jaeger. “Obviously you want to play with a lead, but when you get a lead in the first minute of a game, everybody relaxes a little bit. Quite honestly, they had us under a tremendous amount of pressure from the time we scored to the time that they scored their first goal.”

That first goal for Cliffside came in the 12th minute and right after Tenafly survived an open net situation when Matt Mitchell cleared a ball away from trouble. But his clearance flew out to the foot of Cliffside’s Kazim Uyaroglu, who played the ball right back in on a diagonal to the left.

Freshman Xavier Paz tied the game at 1 with his goal in the 12th minute.

By the time the ball got to freshman Xavier Paz, he was clearly behind the last defender. The question was whether or not he was onside when Uyaroglu played the ball in. The answer given by the referee who was closest to the play was yes and Paz volleyed the ball home and tied the game at 1-1.

Back-and-forth it went for the rest of the first half with Tenafly producing two more close calls. The first came when Jason Kleinman, with a defender directly between him and the goal, took a surprise rip that almost found the lower corner before Cliffside’s senior keeper Isaac Paz got down to push it outside the post in the 17th minute. Isaac Paz also made a nice stop on a McCarthy cross that skid across the turf as he held on to avoid trouble.

The next scoring chance was the Raiders’ and they capitalized. A restart was played up to Kevin Montoya and he kept it moving on an angle into the no-man’s land between the last defender and the goalkeeper. A miscommunication left Tenafly’s all-county keeper Ben Pearl anchored to his line and the defender waiting for him to come barelling out. Hugo Sanchez took advantage as he slid in and put home the game-winner with 10:17 left in the first half.

Tenafly's James McCarthy making the run that led to the game's first goal in the opening minute.

“I wasn’t thinking that I was going to score on that play. Kevin sent the ball in and I just kept running. When I got there I was by myself and I touched it in,” said Sanchez, who has now scored 10 goals already this season. “The defense didn’t talk to each other so it didn’t matter if I got the ball or not, I was just going to run to that place and see what happened.”

That’s Cliffside’s style; sharing the ball, getting all of its players involved, putting a defense on its heels and then finding its seams.

“Their front runners make great diagonal runs, they are very active up front and they play together. You can see that the guys that are in the middle of the field -- [Hussein] Jaffar goes out there, Wonderson [Silva] goes out there – they feed right up into the front,” said Jaeger, giving a reporter a lesson in the intricacies of soccer. “It is not just Hugo Sanchez, they play off each other, they play through the middle of the field as well as anybody and they are really well connected.”

Tenafly is no slouch either and, although the Tigers were unable to find the equalizer in the second half, it was not through lack of effort or opportunity. With 7:23 to go, Tenafly’s hustle nearly paid off. It was not so much of a shot on goal as it was one of those bumps forward from a midfielder designed to create havoc in the box that almost tied the game.

Isaac Paz was quick off his line and got to the ball in the air, but he went up in traffic that included Tenafly’s Jason Kleinman and the ball skipped through on its way toward the open net. It would have made it had it not been for Cliffside senior fullback Dubernet Valle, who headed the ball off the line to preserve the lead and eventually the game.

Cliffside's Dubernet Valle headed a ball off the line with just over seven minutes left to save the win.

“I saw the ball get through and coming right at the goal. When it did everything went quiet and I just headed it out,” said Valle, who saved a goal against Queen of Peace earlier this season in a similar situation. “It was like slow motion and when I headed it out the sound came back and I heard the people in the crowd screaming.”

The win put a loss and a tie between Cliffside and Tenafly in the league standings and put River Dell alone in second place for now, but more than anything else, it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a picture perfect afternoon in late September.

“This was just a great game between two quality programs in a great atmosphere. I was psyched, my kids were psyched, it was just the element of pure respect that we have for coach Jaeger, his program and his players,” said Fucci, who is in his eighth season as Cliffside head coach. “I have watched Billy [Jaeger] coach the game of soccer and I have learned a lot from watching his teams play. A lot of what we do is out of respect for Tenafly; it’s how we pump our kids up because Cliffside Park loves a big game and when we play Tenafly that is exactly what it is.”

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