October
16, 2006
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| Sophomore Marc Godelman cashed two restarts from nearly the same spot in the second half to give Paramus some breathing room in a 4-1 win. | |
FRANKLIN LAKES – Last season Paramus’ Marc Godelman was a diminutive freshman on one of Bergen County’s best teams. He was a bit player, the change of pace type who could come off the bench and go hard for stretches before giving way to an older teammate. This year, Godelman is something quite different.
Now a sophomore, Godelman is a tough matchup for any single opposing defender. Push up too close, and he will blow right by. Lay back and he can serve with accuracy or shoot from long distance with pace and english. And maybe the worst option for a defense is to foul Godelman, who has the speed and balance to get forward in a hurry.
In a physical battle against Old Tappan in the Round of 16 of the Bergen County Tournament on Sunday afternoon, Godelman was fouled twice on the left side the field within 20 yards of the goal. Another time it was Frank Renna that was taken down in a similar spot and all three restarts, which Godelman took, were hit to the sweet spot.
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| Hayato Kanesaka scored in the 56th minute to bring Old Tappan back to within 2-1. |
One bounced off the framework, but the other two curled inside the near post just below the crossbar for the deciding goals in Paramus’ 4-2 win. The fourth seeded Spartans will play No. 12 Fair Lawn, a 2-1 upset winner over No. 5 Glen Rock, in next weekend’s quarterfinal round.
“In the second half it opened up a little and when I had the ball I was just looking to put pressure on the defense,” said Godelman, whose two second half goals stretched the Paramus lead to two both times. “I knew that I could keep taking them on and when they gave up the free kicks, I put them in.”
The game was rough and tumble from the outset and it took Old Tappan, which won just one game last season before pulling the upset at Fort Lee in the opening round of Wednesday, a while to adjust to the style of play. By the time they did, the Knights were trailing by a goal as, in the eighth minute, Renna snuck in behind a defender and took a pass from Chris Richardson. Renna finished to give Paramus (10-4) the early lead, which it maintained into halftime.
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| Frank Renna scored in the eighth minute as Paramus got off to a fast start. |
“It’s been a while since Old Tappan has been in a county tournament. It was ’99 or 2000 and that was a play-in game, one-and done. So we were coming at this without the experience of having been here before,” said OT head coach Jeff Beaudette. “Paramus is a good team and they came out hard to try to put us away early.”
Paramus almost did that when Godelman scored on the first of his free kicks 13 minutes into the second half, but Old Tappan climbed back in just a minute later. Hayato Kanesaka took a pass inside the 18, then turned and hit a bullet on net. Paramus keeper Tom DeBenedetto did well just to get his fingertips on it, but the ball had too much pace and pinged off the inside of the right post before going in and cutting the Spartan lead to 2-1.
It was back-and-forth until Godelman won another restart and converted it at 17:30 and just 20 seconds later he hit the free kick that clanged off the framework. Paramus put the game away with 7:15 to go when Steve McKean’s corner kick found the head of Connor Nutland, who headed it down and in for a 4-1 Paramus lead.
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| Jamie Eckmayer scored Old Tappan's final goal 6:37 before time. |
Old Tappan got a cosmetic goal with 6:37 left when Jamie Eckmeyer, another talented sophomore who played club soccer alongside Godelman, drilled a restart of his own into the upper shelf.
Paramus, which was disqualified from the state tournament after receiving three red cards in a game against Montclair, will have to make do with only the county tournament serving as its preseason. But there are three rounds left and the Spartans are good enough to be included in all three.
“I didn’t think we moved the ball that well today. Maybe it was the first round jitters where we got into that kick-and-run style that is not the way we like to do things. But it is nice to see that we can win a game against a good team when we are not at our best,” said Paramus head coach Michael Ben-David. “We want to possess the ball and keep it on the ground, and there are some other things that I would like us to do better, but it is hard to argue with scoring four goals in a county tournament game.”
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| Senior Connor Nutland headed home a corner kick to net Paramus' final goal. |
For Old Tappan, its resurgence is welcome, but it is not yet complete. The Knights fell to 6-5 on the season with the loss and a spot in the state tournament is still not a foregone conclusion.
“We have some work to do. The county tournament was a great thing for the program and we went 1-1, so, record-wise, it is a wash. But we don’t want this to be the only tournament we play in this season,” said Beaudette. “I like this team. They have been receptive to everything we are trying to do and they work hard to get better every time out. What I am telling them is that if they keep after it, they will get what they deserve and that would be a spot in the states.”
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