Monday,
October 20, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Kyle Berkanish scored the first goal of the game and Bergen Catholic went on to a 3-0 win over defending champion Cliffside Park in the quarterfinals of the Bergen County Tournament on Sunday. |
RAMSEY -- It is not often that a program like Bergen Catholic can pull out the underdog card, but heading into Sunday’s quarterfinal round of the Bergen County Boys Soccer Tournament, the Crusaders had every right. They were up against defending champion Cliffside Park and a tough run of results just before the tournament was selected left the Crusaders on the verge of being left out all together and then unsure of what to expect when they were ultimately included.
“We were not even supposed to be here. We were barely over .500 at the cutoff, we had to play a play-in game just to get to last week and then we were up against a good Ramsey team,” said BC defender Peter Berkanish. “But maybe it is the county tournament environment that gets us going. We won last week, everybody was really hyped for today, we played another good game and now we are heading for the semifinals and we still have nothing to lose.”
Bergen Catholic is heading to the semifinals because of the brilliant 40 minutes it played in the second half against Cliffside. BC played to a stalemate while working against the wind in the first half and then used it and its height advantage at pretty much every position on the field to put three goals away in the second half for the 3-0 victory. That sets up next week’s semifinal match against top-seeded Northern Highlands, a comfortable 4-1 winner over St. Joseph Regional in Sunday’s nightcap at Ramsey High School.
“You can’t teach size and we just were hoping that [the Cliffside players] weren’t going to get taller by this weekend because we wanted to use our advantage there. And the wind was certainly a big factor,” said Bergen Catholic head coach Rui DosSantos. “We had to certainly weather the storm in the first half knowing that [the wind] would come in our favor in the second half.”
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Cliffside Park goalie Edwin Argueta had a busy day in net. |
The wind may or may not have helped sophomore Casey Kelly bend a cross from right to left to about the top of the 6 yard box, but Berkanish’s height certainly helped in the finishing off of the first goal. He got up and over a defender and headed it inside the second post. Edgar Argueta, Cliffside’s standout senior keeper, dive across and got his fingertips on it, but not enough to keep BC from taking the lead for good just over two minutes into the second half.
“We have been practicing getting the ball wide and swinging it in and that is what happened. Casey [Kelly] crossed the ball right over the defender’s head and I put it in. It worked out perfectly,” said Berkanish. “Their keeper’s punts are usually amazing, but the wind was blowing them back and it allowed us to keep the pressure on and eventually we put that first one in. That was a big goal, the first one always is.”
For the first 40-plus minutes, Argueta was locked in a kind of one-on-one dual with Bergen Catholic’s sophomore forward Miles Franklin, the Crusaders’ talented target man. Argueta took one off Franklin’s foot on a sliding bang-bang save in the first half and did it twice more in the first 10 minutes of the second half, including a hard two-footed effort that Franklin did not seem to appreciate.
So it came with satisfaction when Franklin finally found a way to beat the keeper, a nifty chip that caught Argueta flying out for yet another hard challenge. Franklin then took on a defender, won that battle and scored again in the 73rd minute to wrap things up and end Cliffside reign as county champion.
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Miles Franklin (left) scored twice for BC, which will play top-seeded Northern Highlands in the semifinals. |
“That is something that we talked about during the week. I know [Cliffside] lost a great player, the kid [Orlando] Neto was special, and I don’t know how many kids they have back from last year’s team, but even if it was just one we knew that they were going to fight to get back to where they were,” said DosSantos. “This was a good win because we know how good Cliffside is. They are one of the best teams out there that actually wants to play soccer.”
Bergen Catholic is as talented a team as any in Bergen County and on the days when they put it all together, specifically on county tournament Sundays, it has shown the flashes of form that made it a preseason favorite.
What has been the difference?
“It was obvious that we were not playing too well together there for a while. We started moving people around and it started clicking,” said Berkanish, who played in the midfield at the start of the season before moving to the back. “You have to do what is good for the team, we understand it and Miles [Franklin] is starting to put a lot more [goals] in. It’s coming together at the perfect time.”
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