Junior Simon Deossa scored his first ever hat trick to lead Clifton to a 6-1 win over DePaul and its 24th Passaic County title.

LITTLE FALLS – Clifton head coach Stan Lembryk has been accustomed to having tons of experienced players and senior leadership throughout his roster. While there are still senior leaders on this year’s squad, there are also 17 players getting their first taste of soccer on the varsity level. That has shown in a successful, but roller coaster-type season thus far.

The Mustangs finally put together a full 80 minutes on Tuesday in a win over Bergen Catholic. Now the challenge became, could the Mustangs repeat that kind of effort in their most important game of the season with a county title on the line against No. 1 seed DePaul?

The answer was an emphatic yes as the Mustangs stuck to Lembryk’s gameplan and carried it out to perfection. No player benefited more than junior striker Simon Deossa. He scored late in the first half and then added consecutive goals in the second half for his first career hat trick as second-seeded Clifton dominated from start to finish to win a record 24th Passaic County Tournament title by toppling DePaul, 6-1, on Saturday afternoon at Passaic Valley Regional High School in Little Falls.

“You preach the old saying ‘Defense wins championships,’ but that really held true today,” said Lembryk. “They were monsters in the back. We recognized early where the spacing was when we countered and worked hard to expose that space.”

Clifton is a team that often likes to two-touch its way through an opposing defense. However, with a county title at stake, Lembryk completely flipped the script. With the Spartans playing a deep sweeper and pushing their outside fullbacks up, the Mustangs switched quickly from a defending position into an attacking position by winning 50/50 balls in the back and playing long balls into the open spaces in the corners.

Lucas Chen's goal gave Clifton a 2-0 lead less than 20 minutes into the game.

“Scoring first is always huge, especially in a county final,” said Romero. “It gives the team who scores an adrenaline boost and gets everyone hyped. That first goal means everything. We still had a long way to go but it gave us a little more room to take chances. We did an excellent job all day of winning both first and second challenges to keep possession.”

Justin Leach and Mykola Datsyk did that masterfully throughout the first half and the Mustangs took control quickly as a result. Jaden Romero and Lucas Chen scored just over two minutes apart. Before the first half was at the midway point, the Mustangs already had commanding 2-0. That lead grew when Deossa took a feed from Romero, who played well on both ends of the field, and scored to make it 3-0 at halftime.

DePaul (13-3) settled in to start the second half and pulled a goal back with Andray Navarro pouncing on a loose ball and scoring to cut the lead to 3-1 with 22 minutes remaining in regulation. That momentum was short-lived as Deossa came all the way across the field to receive the ball in open space, then carried it along the end line before placing a shot inside the far post to make it a three-goal lead and take the wind out of the Spartans’ sails. He tallied again shortly after to complete his first-ever hat trick and Maksym Kotsiaba capped the scoring in the 77th minute.

“Once we got ahead, we knew we had to keep pushing forward because no lead is safe,” said Deossa. “We know a lot of the DePaul players and we knew they can score quickly if we’re not organized. This was our game to show everyone what type of team we have here.”

The win was the 7th in a row for Clifton (12-2-2) and the title was a state record 24th overall for the Mustangs. With the team finally reaching their potential, they will enjoy this one and then shift their focus towards winning a North 1, Group 4 state section title.

“This is one of the most gratifying wins that I’ve ever had as a coach because of how far we’ve come,” said Lembryk. “We have 29 kids on the roster and 17 of them are first-year players. This was definitely a work in progress. It all starts with a belief in a team concept and being organized. The kids have completely bought into the system and what we’re trying to accomplish. They are tremendous young men, and they deserve this.”

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