September
13, 2006
 |
 |
| After three tough years as a varsity player, Kyle Kreitman scored a goal for Old Tappan on Tuesday as the Knights improved to 2-0 on the season and surpassed last year's win total in just two games. | |
OLD TAPPAN -- Old Tappan's Kyle Kreitman first cracked the varsity lineup as a freshman in 2003 and one theme has been a constant inside the boys soccer program since then. "We've been rebuilding for three years now," said Kreitman, now a senior who has not had so much as a sniff of the postseason in his high school career and suffered through a 1-15 season a year ago.
Two games don’t a season make, but they are a big enough sample to show that this is a different Old Tappan team. After beating Northern Highlands in the season opener and matching its win total of last season, the Knights scored three unanswered goals in the second half and knocked off Wayne Hills, 3-1, on Tuesday afternoon.
 |
| Matt Burian got Wayne Hills on the board first with a well-placed shot in the 20th minute. |
“Last year we had to work through the mental part of being varsity athletes and this year we can concentrate on playing soccer. It’s a big difference and it is fun,” said Jeff Beaudette, who is in his second season as the Old Tappan head coach. “We were much more spirited in the second half and I hope we learned the lesson that we have to come out with more pace, but even if we fall behind we can still fight back.”
Old Tappan (2-0) was forced to play from behind when Wayne Hills got on the board midway through the first half. Off a corner kick to the middle of the box, the ball bounced back to Matt Burian who was alone 20 yards from goal. Burian hit a laser over the crowd in front and just under the crossbar to give the Patriots a 1-0 lead.
Wayne Hills (0-2) had the better of the chances to that point, but Old Tappan started to turn possession in its favor over the final 15 minutes of the first half, even though it did not make a difference on the scoreboard leading up to Beaudette’s halftime speech.
 |
| Old Tappan sophomore Jamie Eckmayer assisted on the equalizer and scored the Knights' final goal. |
“It was definitely an inspirational speech at halftime and it got us pumped up,” said Kreitman. “It was just a matter of getting our minds straight, putting passes together and connecting.”
It was Kreitman who got OT even 13:28 into the second half. Off a restart that was thrown in to sophomore Jamie Eckmayer, Kreitman took a feed at the top corner off the penalty area and took his time, waiting for Wayne Hills goalie Luke Cochrane to commit. And when he did, Kreitman slid one inside the near post to square the game at 1.
Old Tappan took the lead for good just over six minutes later on pretty sequence. Senior Hayato Kanesaka gained possession in the middle of the pitch, sent Paul Vizoukis up the left and continued his run up the middle. Vizoukis played it back to Kanesaka in the middle of the box and he redirected the ball into the net for the 2-1 lead.
Now controlling possession, the Knights continued to keep the pressure on. Eckmayer set up Vizoukis for a left-footed chance from the left post but the shot sailed just wide. With 14 minutes to go, Kreitman sent in a low cross that was barely off the ground when Vizoukis dropped and got his head on it, leading to the best of Cochrane’s five saves, a dive to his right.
 |
| Andrew Cuevas played well in the middle of the field for Wayne Hills. |
The Knights did their best work when playing the ball out wide then swinging it back in, a smart tactic as Wayne Hills’ Andrew Cuevas, a physical sweeper, played well against runs up the middle. It was from the flank that Old Tappan added its final tally. Eckmayer got free up the right side and beat the last defender before cutting back across and sliding it inside the near post with 8:04 left in the game.
Eckmayer’s arrival on the varsity level last season was highly anticipated inside the program. After getting a crash course as a full time starter last year, he has adapted to the speed of the game and is a threat from the center midfield, which gives the Knights a solid combination of youth and experience that could be the key to a turnaround season.
“The [expectations] are pretty high for me, but it is not hard to deal with at all. They are high for this whole team this year so we all feel it and it is better than what we had to deal with last year,” said Eckmayer. “We just have to keep winning.”
 |
| Hayato Kanesaka scored the go-ahead goal for Old Tappan in the 59th minute. |
Winning is now also the No. 1 concern for Wayne Hills, which lost its opener, 1-0, to Ramapo with the lone goal coming on a penalty kick. After starting strong on Tuesday, the Patriots had trouble stringing passes together and organizing an attack over the final 40 minutes.
The Knights were steady in the back with senior keeper Joe Weiss making eight saves and an organized defense that saw Billy Chernigal, Alex Spatz, Charlie Fallon and Avi Nagaraja among others force Wayne Hills to shoot from long range in the second half.
“Maybe my guys counted their chickens before they were hatched a little bit at halftime today, figuring we had a lead against a team that won just one game last year. But we learned a lesson I hope,” said Wayne Hills head coach Nelson Graham. “But [Old Tappan] doesn’t give up and they have two nice strikers that everybody else does a good job funneling the ball to. They are dangerous and we have some things we need to tighten up moving forward.”
 |
| Wayne Hills keeper Luke Cochrane making one of his five saves. |
For as well as Old Tappan played on Tuesday, it will need to be even better if it hopes to get to 3-0. The Knights are walking into a hornet’s nest on Thursday at Ramapo, the perennial state power that was beaten convincingly, 3-1, by Northern Highlands yesterday.
“Today could not have worked out any better in terms of preparing for Ramapo,” said Beaudette. “You can go down a goal or maybe even two goals, which could easily happen up there, but if you fight you have a chance. We obviously want to go in there with passion from the first whistle because you don’t want to give Ramapo a head start, but no matter what happens we have to keep on coming.”
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
|
|
|
| About Us | Contact Us | Home |
Questions?
E-mail the editor editor@northjerseysports.com
All contents © copyright 2003-2006 HSSportsWeb.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
