Monday, October 10, 2011

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Nathan Bodenstein scored one of Old Tappan's three second half goals as the Knights advanced to the county quarterfinals.

ORADELL – Even when being a heavy favorite in a tournament game, making adjustments when needed can be the difference between moving on or being upset. Coming into its Bergen County Tournament Round of 16 game on Sunday, Northern Valley/Old Tappan knew it was facing a dangerous opponent in Fort Lee.

With some capable scorers on the offensive end and a strong goaltender, the Bridgemen have been a tough matchup, having scored at least two goals in each of their eight games. With neither team able to make a push early on, Old Tappan head coach Mike Hanchar decided to make a change in formations midway through the first half. While the results were not seen immediately on the scoreboard, they were coming.

Nathan Bodenstein blasted a shot home from the top of the box eight minutes into the second half. Tyler Walsh and Jae Cho scored late as third-seeded Northern Valley/Old Tappan moved into the Bergen County suarterfinals with a 3-0 victory over Fort Lee, the No. 14 seed, at River Dell High School.

“We have been in a little funk the past two weeks, but I think we broke out of that today,” said Hanchar. “Playing St. Joe’s, Ramapo, and Northern Highlands back-to-back is no easy task. We just needed to play well and get a ‘W’ back under our belts and we did both today.”

The Bridgemen showed early on that they were not in awe of Old Tappan with Fumio Himeno and Ron Locker creating some chances in the midfield. Sensing that they were not gaining any traction moving forward, Hanchar switched his formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 to neutralize the center of the field. It worked quite well as the Golden Knights started winning 50-50 balls and quickly took over the possession battle.

Ron Locker had a couple of Fort Lee's most dangerous chances.

Fort Lee goaltender Matt Hernandez made several tough saves throughout the first half, the biggest coming on a breakaway by Bodenstein that kept the game scoreless heading into the second half.

“We didn’t find the back of the net right after the switch, but we felt like a goal was coming,” added Hanchar. “I just told the kids to basically keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll get a few. We did a great job of applying pressure on their back four until we finally could put one away.”

In the 48th minute, Hernandez made another point-blank save, but Old Tappan freshman Tyler Walsh collected the ball in the middle of the box and dropped a pass back to Bodenstein, who ripped it just under crossbar to give Old Tappan a 1-0 lead.

“The ball just rolled right to my feet and I just wanted to get a hard shot on net,” said Bodenstein, who now has five goals on the season. “We felt like we were knocking on the door for awhile and it was huge that we got the first goal. I felt like we were wearing them down in the back and we had to keep pushing forward until we got one.”

Fort Lee had a chance to net the equalizer with just over 15 minutes to play when Nikola Gogic made a nice move to wiggle free up the sideline and try a centering pass for Locker. OT keeper Frank Favata came up big by coming off of his line to corral the ball before Locker could get to it.

Two minutes later, the Golden Knights put the game on ice when the Bridgemen were unable to clear the ball and Tyler Walsh knocked home a shot off of a scramble in front to make it 2-0. Jae Cho scored late after Tyler Walsh’s shot hit the crossbar and the Fort Lee defense thought the ball was out-of-bounds. The ball bounced way out to Cho, who simply walked in alone and scored for the final 3-0 margin.

Freshman Tyler Walsh was a force in the midfield for Old Tappan.

“We just couldn’t clear our zone time after time and it finally caught up to us,” said Fort Lee head coach Bob Ciccone. “Clearing our defensive third when we are in trouble has been a problem for us all year long. A team as talented as Old Tappan will take advantage of those mistakes as they did in the second half. With the league title still to play for, we will take this as a learning experience and turn our attention of battling for a league title.”

Tyler Walsh and Bodenstein both had strong performances in the midfield for Northern Valley/Old Tappan (6-2-1), which got its first win in nearly three weeks. Favata needed to make just two saves to notch the shutout as the Golden Knights held a 22-4 advantage in shots. Hernandez finished with 11 saves for Fort Lee (6-3-1).

Old Tappan moves into next weekend’s Bergen County quarterfinals, where it will face old NBIL rival Mahwah. The 11th seeded Thunderbirds pulled the upset of the Round of 16 with a 1-0 win over sixth-seeded Don Bosco Prep. Mahwah has now won four in a row and will be a tough test for the Golden Knights. But yesterday showed that whatever adjustments needed to be made, the Golden Knights would have no problem adapting to them if that means the end result is a win.

“Whatever formation we play, if that’s what is working for us then that’s what we’re comfortable playing,” said Bodenstein. “We know we’re going to have to play better and finish around the net better than we did today. Getting a win today was huge just because we haven’t done it in awhile. Now our confidence is back and we think it will get our season back on track.”

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