Wednesday, September 17, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Nick Rowek scored the game's lone goal with just over 24 minutes to play as Wayne Hills improved to 2-0 on the season with a 1-0 win at Old Tappan on Tuesday afternoon.

OLD TAPPAN -- As a sophomore trying to find a place on the Wayne Hills soccer team, Evan Baum has some obstacles to overcome. The speed of the game is faster on the varsity level, the opposing players are bigger and stronger and, just two games into the season, he has yet to establish exactly what his role will be this year. But Baum also has a skill set that comes in handy when his team is looking for a game-winning goal.

“He’s a sophomore, a nice player,” said Wayne Hills head coach Nelson Graham. “Sometimes I bring him in for his touch on the ball and he has a nice feel for distribution.”

And sometimes in sports, what seems like an innocent coaching move can make the difference between a win and a loss. With Rob Peterson still trying to work his way into shape after an illness, Graham put Baum on the field with just under 21 minutes to play in a scoreless game at Old Tappan on Tuesday.

Not even 10 seconds after he crossed the white line, Baum got his first touch on the ball and sent a cross from near the sideline to the back post where Nick Rowek was running hard. The serve was right on time and Rowek headed the ball off back toward the middle of the net. Old Tappan keeper Ryan Belen got his fingertips on the shot, but not enough to keep it from providing the lone goal of Wayne Hills’ 1-0 win in NBIL-Division 1 action.

Jamie Eckmayer produced many of Old Tappan's best scoring chances.

“It was pretty much a perfect ball and I just tried to put it to the back post, and it worked out good,” said Rowek, a senior. “It a smaller field here, it’s long but it is not very wide, so when you get the chance to get some space to get a shot off you have to take advantage of it.”

The game-winner was actually set up by Josh Kaufman, who settled a bouncing ball and didn’t rush while drawing the defense to him. Kaufman then sent the ball up to Baum, who knew what to do with it despite not yet having broken a sweat.

“I just got into the game, the ball came to me and my job in that situation is to try to drive it across the box and it went right to Nick’s head,” said Baum. “Physically it’s tough at this level when you are going up against kids that are 6-1, 6-2 and 200 pounds. I am 140 pounds and I can get muscled around a little bit, so I try to concentrate on the things I can do like possess the ball and try to slow the game down and win the ball when it comes my way.”

Old Tappan, on the other hand, is still looking for its first win of the season. After dropping its opener to defending Group 3 state champion Ramapo, the Golden Knights had their chances to break through on Tuesday, especially in the first half.

OT has a legitimate playmaker in midfielder Jamie Eckmayer, who created a generous amount of opportunities in the first 40 minutes especially in combinations with forward Chris Brundage. Brundage makes a big target in front of the net and the two almost connected inside the first seven minutes of the game.

Eckmayer made a hard run up the middle of the field and he pushed a pass up the right sideline for Brundage, who redirected the ball on net, but Wayne Hills goalkeeper Mike Diduch got just enough of the shot to push it just wide of the left post.

Mike Daniel and the Wayne Hills defense kept Old Tappan off the board.

Thirteen minutes in, Eckmayer hit a restart from 30 yards away that found the head of Brundage, but his flick was high of the mark. Old Tappan had at least three more quality chances in the first half, but two of them missed the net and another, and Eckmayer shot that came after he locked a defender on his back, was gobbled up by Diduch at the right post.

The good news was that the Knights were generating opportunities. The bad news that they went off at halftime still scoreless, a tough situation for a team trying to build up some confidence after last year’s three-win season.

“We put some shots on goal, but we just couldn’t get one. We talked at halftime about converting some of our chances because in soccer you never know how many you are going to get,” said Mike Hanchar, who is in his first season as Old Tappan’s head coach. “Effort wasn’t the problem, I thought we played well. We won a lot of 50-50 balls, but we got a little tired in the second half and we got stretched a little bit, but we have to move on. The most important game is the game in front of us. We travel to Fair Lawn on Thursday and we have to keep our heads up. At the very least, I feel like this team should be in the state tournament this year and that is still the goal.”

Old Tappan's Ryan Belen was steady in net and finished with 7 saves.

It’s the same set of expectations for Wayne Hills, which knows how to gear up for the postseason. The Patriots made a run to the semifinals of the Passaic County Tournament last year and then pulled two upsets, including a win on the road at top-seeded Sparta, to reach the same round of the North 1, Group 3 state sectional tournament.

After a win over Fair Lawn in the season opener, Wayne Hills is now 2-0 and is still not at full strength. The Patriots figure to get better as Peterson regains his fitness and they are still without their top striker, Sean Kennedy, who has been sidelined by appendicitis.

But two wins in two league games is not a bad way to start the season.

“There is not a breather anywhere on the NBIL schedule. Every game can go either way and every team is close to each other with the only difference being Ramapo. They are heads above everybody right now,” said Graham. “We’ll be a little deeper and maybe score a few more goals as we get healthy, but we still have the same expectations. We were ranking very low in the county and won two games and then we beat Sparta and Roxbury in the states and those were two nice wins. I don’t know if we could duplicate that but it is where we have set our sights.”

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