The boy’s soccer team got back in the win column on Wednesday with a 3-1 victory over Pennsauken. Here is our recap of the game.
“We want to get the guys comfortable with the lead,” head coach Jay Meile said. “We haven’t had that situation a lot this year. We’ve been playing a lot from behind.”
Cinnaminson came into today’s Liberty Division contest having lost three in a row overall and two straight in the division.
“When we get on the pitch, we’ve been working on defending, winning the ball and anything that can possibly make our game better,” keeper Mike Deal said.
The win boosts the Pirates to 3-5-1 overall and 3-4 in the Liberty.
“This gets us going,” Deal said. “We are back in the game. I think we are going to start playing some really good soccer.”
The victory also marks another season sweep of Pennsauken after grabbing a 3-0 victory in the first meeting.
Chris Updike opened the scoring just seven minutes into the game to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead.
“We switched up our lineup a little bit because it hasn’t been working the past couple of games,” Updike said. “We did a really good job of hitting the men out wide. We had good battles won on 50-50 balls.”
The score would remain unchanged until six minutes into the second half when Pennsauken tied it at 1-1 on an empty net goal from David Raymond.
Deal (four saves) came out to play a loose ball to the right of the net, but could not corral it. Raymond took control of it and scored for the equalizer.
“Even though we let up a goal to tie it at 1-1, it was good for us to be in that situation,” Miele said. “As a coaching staff, we kind of see who’s trying to do too much and who’s not doing the things we talk about in practice.”
From that point on, the game turned back into the hands of the Pirates.
“We did well communicating off the ball,” Deal said. “We did well making the runs around the ball. Everyone really did a good job today.”
Ryan Mahaffy took a pretty pass from Dan Kern and slipped the ball past Indians keeper Aaron Chester (11 saves) for the eventual game winner.
With a 2-1 lead midway through the second half, the Pirates defense clamped down on the Indians.
“I thought our back four played well. We had five guys that rotated back there,” Miele said. “We moved PJ (Dluoik) outside. I think he does a nice job of marking up on other teams’ speed.”
“Tommy (Ungvarsky) and Brad (Miller) have embraced their roles back there. Pat (Bearint) and (Jake) Vermes have done a great job in the center. Vermes is a different player right now. It’s nice to see.”
Updike then capped the scoring with his second of the game with just over six minutes left.
“It felt good to give us the cushion so we could relax a little bit and get our legs back for our next game coming up,” Updike said.
Updike now has six goals on the season to lead the team.
“Competition is good,” Miele said. “Unfortunately, we haven’t always had that. Some of the younger guys are looking for minutes.”
Cinnaminson returns to the pitch on Friday, October 7 at Pemberton at 3:45pm for a non-divisional contest.
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