Saturday, September 13, 2014

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Nikolce Ilioski scored 13 minutes into the game to give Garfield the lead for good in a 2-0 victory at Elmwood Park on Friday afternoon.

ELMWOOD PARK – Coming into this season, Garfield head coach Mark Pieklo knew he had some offensive pieces in place to be a dangerous team, but to become a contender for a league title, Pieklo needed to find the same kind of chemistry along the back line. He has gotten that and much more as his defense has not only become a cohesive unit but it has become the backbone of a Boilermaker team that has been unbeatable so far this year.

Friday provided the perfect example against geographical neighbor and longtime rival Elmwood Park. Although the Crusaders had stretches where they controlled possession, the Garfield defense time and time again locked them down where it counted most and would not let off a shot. Garfield's playmakers rewarded them with an early goal and that was all the defense needed for that lead to hold up.

Nikolce Ilioski scored 13 minutes in and sweeper Wojciech Piwowarczyk added an insurance goal late to stayed undefeated on the season with a 2-0 triumph at Elmwood Park High School.

Garfield did not get many scoring opportunities early on but cashed in the biggest one. After clearing away a corner kick, the Boilermakers counter attacked the length of the field. Andre Sajnoski sent a long ball up the left wing that junior David Herrera saved from going over the end line. He dribbled along the end line before sending a low cross along the six-yard box. Elmwood Park goaltender Christian Andrach dove and got his hands it but was not able to corral it with the ball moving with so much pace. Ilioski made a nice diagonal run to slip inside a defender and bang home the rebound for a 1-0 lead.

Chris Nesivic and Elmwood Park saw their season record fall to an even 1-1-1.

“I saw (Herrera) with the ball and I just tried to get in position for a pass or a rebound,” said Ilioski. “If you get in front of the net often enough, something is going to happen and you have to take advantage of it. I was in the right place and the ball came right to my foot.”

The score remained that way into the second half, one in which Elmwood Park started to find its legs and create some offense. They pushed numbers forward and earned several corner and direct kicks within 30 yards, but every time the Crusaders put the ball in the air, either Piwowarczyk was there to win it or keeper Egi Zyfi came off of his line to punch it away.

“I thought we played really well and controlled play from box to box, but Garfield did a great job in the defensive third to keep us from getting shots off on target,” said Elmwood Park head coach Jan Andras. “If you don't get shots in the offensive third, you're not going to score; and if you can't score, you can't win. Whenever Garfield got close, they did a good job in letting shots go and making something happen. I think when we start playing more aggressive in the box, things will really start to click and we'll see better results than we had today.”

With time winding down, the Crusaders pushed virtually everyone forward to try and force overtime. Once again though, Piwowarczyk won a ball in the air and David Hlawacz cleared it out to start the counterattack. It led to a 2-on-1 break with Ilioski sending a ball into space for Kejvi Hajdardhi. Andrach saved the initial shot, Hajhardhi pounced on the rebound and tucked it inside the left post with 1:15 to play to cap the scoring.

“Any time we get a win it's a good thing, but we have to start taking our game to another level,” said Piwowarczyk. “It was tough to play the ball on the ground on this field, which is what we like to do. We're communicating better than we did last year and we're more confident than we were last year.”

Egi Zyfi made three saves for Garfield, which has a tough three-game week coming up.

Garfield now has a streak of over 250 consecutive minutes without allowing a goal. Zyfi needed to make just three saves to earn the shutout.

Andrach finished with seven saves for Elmwood Park, which took its first loss of the season and fell to 1-1-1.

Things do not get any easier for Garfield this week with Glen Rock, Pompton Lakes, and North Bergen all primed to knock them off. While Pieklo likes what he sees out of his team so far, he also knows that the Boilermakers' fortunes can change in a heartbeat.

“We're off to a great start, but we have three real tough games ahead of us that can go either way,” said Pieklo. “We saw that the goals we scored came from when we played the ball wide as opposed to straight down the middle of the field. When we used the whole field, we moved the ball well. Today we didn't do that all the time though and our defense played great to bail us out in stretches, especially (Piwowarcyzk). We have three straight shutouts and we likely wouldn't have shut out any of them without him back there. That said, we can't just rely on our defense. To get to where we want to be, we have to put two solid halves together both offensively and defensively.”

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