The Pirates boy’s soccer team stunned Burlington Township on Thursday with a last-second goal to even their record in the Liberty.
Cinnaminson picked up the win 2-1 to move to 2-2-1 overall and 2-2 in the Liberty.
“With our division, if you go beyond two losses in our division you have no chance at all,” head coach Jason Meile said. “We have to go one division opponent at a time and take care of business.”
Burlington Township falls to 2-3-1 overall and 1-2-1 in the division.
The Falcons struck first in this one, roughly eight minutes into the second half after relentlessly pressuring the Pirates defense.
Cinnaminson picked up the equalizer with 20 minutes gone in the second half off a goal from Pat Bearint.
“Burlington Township seemed to be jumbled up. We sent the ball right in and it hit off the end of my foot,” Bearint said.
“It started bouncing off bodies and I saw it loose in front of the goalie and I smacked it with my foot and it went top left.”
With just a 1:30 remaining in the game, the Pirates amped up the pressure on the Falcons deep in their end.
“The second half, I thought we played a little more of a complete game,” Meile said. “We had that one breakdown, but we moved some guys around and luckily we found some matchups that were in our favor.”
Cinnaminson got a throw in and some good ball movement in front of the net when Mike Lutz deposited the game winner with just three seconds left in regulation.
“Finn (Raymond) just played a great ball in; it couldn’t have been better,” Lutz said. “I called (Ryan) Mahaffy to leave it and I kept my eye on it the whole time.”
It was Lutz’s first varsity goal.
“Getting the first varsity goal like this to put the team ahead in the last seconds of the game is no other feeling,” Lutz said.
“We had this mindset today that it was a must-win. After the RV loss we knew we had to step up. We have to play well in the division to have a chance of winning it.”
The Pirates return to the pitch on Saturday, September 24 against Delsea at home at 11am.
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