Tuesday, September 15, 2009

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Roberto Menendez scored a a free kick just two minutes after his team fell behind and Cliffside Park rolled from there in a 4-1 over River Dell.

CLIFFSIDE PARK -- The Cliffside Park boys soccer program has evolved. No longer is good good enough and no longer is it sufficient to be one of the best small school teams in North Jersey. Cliffside expects more from itself nowadays and why not? The Raiders have won back-to-back BCSL-American Division championships; they were the outright Group 2 state champions last season and have made serious runs at the Bergen County title in each of the last three years. No longer is Cliffside Park reaching for the next level, nowadays it is striving to stay there.

It starts with grueling practices that challenge the players mentally as well as physically, it continues on game days when players are required to wear collared shirts and khaki pants to school and it continues when the whistle blows and the relentless preparation pays off in wins, as it has 40 times over the past two seasons.

“We feel like we can play in state finals and play on a higher level. When you have a kid like X [Exau Paz] who might get double or triple teamed or we face a team that might come at us with flying forearms, we have to be able to be able to keep our composure,” said Cliffside Park head coach Jim Fucci. “If we are not trained mentally to keep our composure than we can’t count on winning big games against good teams and that is what we want to be able to continue to do here.”

Ben Ciccarelli gave River Dell the lead by burying a bouncing ball 18 minutes into the game.

If the Raiders were not in control of their emotions in their home opener on Monday they could have found themselves in the same position they were a year ago when they lost to River Dell in the second game of the season. The Golden Hawks, playing their first game of the season, withstood Cliffside’s early pressure and converted their first real chance into a goal.

After the ball ping-ponged around the penalty area in the Cliffside end, Ben Chicarelli found himself with an open look at the lower left corner, which he found 18 minutes into the game to give River Dell the lead. It was short lived, however, as less than two minutes later Roberto Menendez stood over a free kick in the middle of field and 22 yards from goal. The Cliffside Park senior hit a rocket that kissed the crossbar before sneaking beneath it and tying the score.

“We went the whole preseason and then our first game without giving up a goal, and then we start off our first home game and give up the first goal. That made us a little furious,” said Menendez, a senior midfielder. “When we got the free kick I saw the goalie focusing a little on the wall. I didn’t ask for 10 yards so I didn’t have to wait for the whistle. I hit it quickly and watched it bend right under the crossbar.”

And when the second half began, Cliffside Park (2-0) finally turned the possession it enjoyed over the first 50 minutes into goals. Paz scored the first of his two goals with 30:13 left to play in the game to give his team its first lead and the Raiders stretched the advantage into a 4-1 win on its own home turf.

Exau Paz scored twice in the second half for Cliffside Park, which improved to 2-0 on the season with a 9-1 goal differential.

What turned into the game-winning goal was a matter of finesse as Paz timed his run up the right side so that he was the first to get a touch on a soft ball played in by William Fuentes. Paz held off a defender and nudged the ball with a short chip into the opposite corner.

“Will was the one who made the play. I called him and he made a great pass. All I had to do was place it right at the pole,” said Paz, the junior striker. “This was important because last year we went to their home and they beat us in the second game. But now we beat the team that is probably going to give us the toughest challenge [in the BCSL-American] and this could boost us toward what we want to do the rest of the season.”

For River Dell, a team with only three returning starters (Peter Oh, Massimo Gioffre and Matt Goble) and was rained out of its first game, it was a tough way to start a new season. The Hawks’ defense, and in particular starting goalkeeper Chris Melber, was able to hold off Cliffside’s well-coordinated attack for most of the first 50 minutes, but it expended a lot of energy in doing so. And once Cliffside took the lead, playing catchup was too much to ask against the two-time defending league champs with nine starters back from last year’s team and a deep bench to back them up.

Chris Melber was outstanding in net for River Dell, making a host of tough saves.

“Right after we scored that first goal [assistant] coach [Chris] Lubben and I said the first three minutes after that were going to be important. Sure enough, two minutes later we got lazy, we didn’t get in position and we gave them a free kick from 22 yards. You can’t give a team like Cliffside opportunities like that,” said River Dell head coach Kevin Sabella. “Then in the second half we showed no stamina. They are the class of the league and maybe the class of the county, and we were 1-1 with them going into the second half. We just didn’t come out to play in the second half, no excuses.”

Cliffside Park made it 3-1 when Fuentes pinched in from the left side, waited for the traffic to clear and went back to the left corner in the 53rd minute. The Raiders closed the scoring in the 57th minute when Luis Quiroz handled the ball up the left side before sliding it in to Fuentes, who set up Paz for a tap into the low left.

Cliffside’s strength is its ability to move the ball along the ground with any of the 10 field players in the mix at any time. Rarely if ever on Monday was a Red Raiders seen chasing a long ball in from the back and while the ball is moving from player to player, the defense is put in the unenviable position of playing chase.

“We work on playing the 1-2 touch. We pass and we move up for the open space,” said Paz. “That keeps the defense running while we keep our shape and move the ball around.”

Joe Han is one of a talented group that Cliffside uses off the bench to keep up the pressure.

That is the plan that Fucci has put in place and the 80 minutes of constant pressure makes defenses vulnerable, especially when fatigue sets in in the second half of games.

“Last year we had 19 wins and 15 of them came in the second half. The year before that we had 21 wins and 17 of them came in the second half,” said Fucci. “Of you look at today’s game it was 1-1 at the half and I thought River Dell was going to come out flying in the second half. They were 1-1 with us and had a chance to make a statement with a win over Cliffside, but maybe we just wear teams down in the first half with our possession.”

Sabella didn’t necessarily disagree with that assessment and although River Dell (0-1) was handed a loss in its season opener, it gave the Hawks a pretty good idea of what they need to work on.

“This was a tough way to start, but it was a measuring stick game and we got a chance to see where we stand right out of the gate,” said Sabella. “We just didn’t step up. When you are 1-1 with Cliffside Park going into the second half anything can happen, but we didn’t respond. We lost eight starters [to graduation] and that hurts, but I never look at what we lost. Yes it’s on paper, but it’s really just an opportunity to step up. Until we find people who can play and be leaders out there, this is going to be the result.”

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