Saturday, September 17, 2011

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Anthony Sare scored less than 90 seconds into overtime to give River Dell a 2-1 win over Bergenfield on Friday afternoon.

BERGENFIELD – Game day did not go exactly as planned for the River Dell boys soccer team. First, before the Golden Hawks even got on it, the bus that was supposed to take them to Bergenfield High School on Friday afternoon broke down. Then the promised replacement failed to show up and by the time they disembarked from the convoy of private cars that got them to their road game it was already 4:45 p.m., exactly 30 minutes after the scheduled start time. A quick warmup and a bad first half followed thereafter.

“We our played our worst half of the season so far in that first half. We weren't pressuring the ball, we weren't communicating at all and we were letting them knock it around way too much in our defensive third,” said River Dell head coach Kevin Sabella. “But in one way we were lucky. We got out of that first half down by just one goal, we got a chance to regroup and I am really happy with the way the kids got themselves together and got after it in the second half.”

River Dell got after it, got even with 13 minutes left in regulation and got a goal 1:30 into overtime to end a long day with a golden goal from Anthony Sare and hard-earned 2-1 win.

Bergenfield's Juan Carlito Arango scored the game's lone first half goal.

Bergenfield controlled the opening half by controlling possession, spreading the field and gaining ground in small increments rather than kicking and running after long balls all while disrupting River Dell's counter attacks. The advantage finally showed up on the scoreboard at almost exactly the midway point of the first half when the ball was spit out of traffic in front of the net and landed on the foot of Juan Carlito Arango, who knew what to do with it.

Arango, on the left post about 6 yards from goal, buried his first touch into the opposite corner to give Bergenfield the 1-0 lead that almost expanded in the 32nd minute when Andreas Papapetrou just missed wide left with an opportunity volley after being sent in by Kevin Ramirez.

River Dell walked off trailing by a goal, but in the second half it would be able to press its most glaring advantage: depth. Bergenfield did not use a single substitute in the first half and employed only one in the second. The Golden Hawks, on the other hand, used a total of 16 field players and eventually the fresher legs started to win out.

“We might not be the best 11 out here on any given day, but not too many teams by 16 guys and have confidence in all of them,” said Sabella. “We always tell our guys to keep it close, play good defense and take advantage of our opportunities. We had a few in the first half but they came a little more frequently in the second half.”

Senior captain Craig Marullis scored on a second half PK to get River Dell even at 1.

River Dell (2-1) evened out the possession disadvantage during the first 20 minutes of the second half and then took it over completely in the final 20. Still, it took a break for River Dell to get even and it came courtesy of a handball in the box. That set up a penalty kick for Craig Marullis, who tied the game...barely.

Marullis hit a boomer just to the left of Bergenfield keeper Sergio Mejia, who had been solid in net all game. Mejia started to move to his right before the PK was struck, but twisted back in time to get both gloves of the Marullis shot. The ball was hit with enough pace to find its way through and the game was tied.

“I would have liked the penalty kick to go a little more to the right, but a goal is a goal and I'll take anyway it comes,” said Marullis, one of River Dell's 12 seniors and one of its four captains. “That first half was a huge, huge wake up call. I play with a lot of those [Bergenfield] kids and I knew that they were very technical. They are good passers with the one-touches and that caught us off guard in the first half. We had to start putting more pressure on them.”

River Dell kept up the pressure and spent most of the final 10 minutes of regulation testing Mejia, but they had to wait until the extra session before finding the game-winner. The Hawks almost got it less than a minute into OT. Zach Rossenoff flicked a header on to Jose Aparicio, who was robbed at the near post by Mejia. But Bergenfield never got the ball back over midfield. River Dell won possession about 30 yards from goal and started the deciding rush. It was Aparicio again on the right side who nudged one toward the goal and when a bad clearance followed, Sare deposited the game winner into the lower left corner to end the contest.

Sophomore Sergio Mejia was solid in net for Bergenfield.

“We could tell they were getting tired. On our counters they weren't getting back as much and we finally took advantage of it,” said Sare, a junior. “[The winning goal] started with a pass from me up to Jose and he forced them to make a mistake on the clearance. It just landed on my right foot and I didn't think about it, I just shot it.”

The win pushed River Dell's record to 2-1 on the season. The Hawks dropped their opener against Indian Hills before bouncing back against Mahwah. They'll carry their two-game winning streak into Monday night's matchup against Pascack Valley where they will get to test themselves against a team off to one of the best starts in Bergen County.

“Today was a weird one because no bus showed up, we had to pile in cars to get over here and we weren't as focused as we should have been at the start,” said Sabella. “Then we came out and played a much better second half, we got the win in overtime and hopefully we can carry that good feeling forward.”

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