Wednesday, November 18, 2009

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Junior Sam Fiorenzo scored twice, once in each half, as Northern Highlands rolled to a 6-0 win over West Morris-Mendham in the Group 3 state semifinals on Tuesday night.

NORTH JERSEY -- Soccer is a game without a lot of stats to illustrate just how close or lopsided a game might be. Shots on goal can be misleading, possession advantage can be subjective and the team that has the better of play does not always win in the end. So to quantify just how well Northern Highlands played on Tuesday night in the Group 3 state semifinals against West Morris-Mendham, we'll have to borrow from other sports.

Had it been baseball game Highlands would have thrown a perfect game. Had it been football the Highlanders would have rolled up over 500 yards of total offense and had it been boxing, Highlands would have been ahead on all of the judges cards before scoring a spectacular knockout.

From beginning to end Northern Highlands was dominant, putting seven shots on goal in the first six minutes of the game, scoring three times in the first half and kept it rolling all the way through its 6-0 victory at Indian Hills High School that puts the Highlanders one win away from their first outright state title since they went back to back in 1991 and 1992. Highlands will play Central Jersey champion Hopewell Valley in the Group 3 final on Saturday morning at The College of New Jersey.

Mendham's Robin Chernow was under diress almost from the opening whistle.

Mendham was given the ball at midfield to start the game and proceeded to move it into the Highlanders’ defensive third with its first possession, but once Highlands cleared the ball out for the first time they never again were threatened.

“We had some opportunities early, in the first five or six minutes,” said Northern Highlands head coach Tara Madigan. “It was a dream start, but we didn’t have any goals.”

But they would come in bunches not too long after. Mendham keeper Robin Chernow stood up to the steady early onslaught, but it was too much to ask to keep up that pace once it became clear that Highlands had no plans of abandoning the penalty box. Chernow made seven saves in the first 12 minutes, none of them easy, but was eventually solved on a pretty play that started near midfield.

Eilis McGovern saved a ball from going out of bounds near midfield and then bent it around a defender and up the left side of the field. Val Sydnor then ran onto to it and carried it deep before dropping it back for Tara Corbett, who took a rip that deflected off a defender on its way into the penalty area. There was a pileup in front of the net as Chernow and two defenders tried to keep the ball away from Sam Fiorenzo and did so momentarily.

Tara Corbett had a goal and two assists and Highlands dominated.

Fiorenzo recovered the rebound and got off a shot that Chernow got a piece of, but not enough to keep it from trickling inside the right post and in for a 1-0.

Fiorenzo, who tore her ACL in the final game of last season, has been working her way back to full fitness during the course of the season and is just now getting up to full speed.

“She was out with an ACL injury and she didn’t play much this season. She played early on and then we didn’t have her for awhile, at least not for 80 minutes like we did tonight and she played unbelievable,” said Madigan. “She was playing here and there, coming off the bench and starting a little bit. She started against Paramus [in the section final], but she didn’t go 80 minutes, but tonight we saw the Sam that we had last year.”

Fiorenzo’s goal, the first of her two on the night, came just over 14 minutes into the game and once Northern Highlands got the lead, it just kept adding to it. Fiorenzo banked a ball off a defender and sent in McGovern 1-v-1 against Chernow. McGovern let Chernow slide low, then lifted a shot that hit the inside of the far post and bounced back across the goal line to give the Highlanders a 2-0 lead in the 19th minute.

Val Sydnor's goal in the 32nd minutes gave Highlands a 3-0 halftime lead.

“We didn’t know that team, we heard they were good and they gave us a fight for the first couple of minutes,” said Fiorenzo, a junior. “Once we got the first [goal] it obviously got us going. We were up there and we had so many opportunities and I am just glad that we were able to finally put some away.”

With nine minutes left in the first half Sydnor followed home a shot by Catherine Zysk to give Highlands its 3-0 halftime lead and four minutes after that goalkeeper Caroline Broder got her first touch of any kind. Broder pulled down a high bouncer in the box with no one around her and drew a cheer from the Highlands fans for finally being included in the action.

“We came out offensively and played very well. It’s what we wanted to do, we wanted to score early and our midfielders and our forwards executed very well and gave us a good lead at halftime,” said Madigan. “We needed to get past this one to make it to Saturday. It’s been a long time since Highlands has been [to a state final], so we are all excited.”

The second half was 40 minutes worth of celebration as Fiorenzo’s second goal of the night came five minutes in and gave Highlands a 4-0 lead. Tara Corbett scored to make it 5-0 in the 68th minute and then assisted on Highlands’ final goal when she sent in Alex Hubelbank, who finished from the left side with 4:29 left in the game.

Highlands has been the best public school team in North Jersey since Day 1 of the season and is now just one win from adding the Group 3 state championship to its list of accomplishments. The Highlanders are the NBIL Division 1 champions; they are the North 1, Group 3 state sectional champions and are sporting a 23-1-1 record with the lone loss coming in overtime against fellow state finalist IHA in the Bergen County final.

“It’s amazing. It’s like unreal right now,” said Corbett, Highlands’ senior midfielder. “We came into this game with our minds set of going to Trenton [for the state final]. As soon as we came out in the first minute and dominated, I think we just knew it from there that this was our game.”

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