Hun, South, PHS advance
By: Bob Nuse
About the only thing that has been predictable about the West Windsor-Plainsboro South boys’ soccer team this season has been the team’s unpredictability.
"We’ve been so up and down because we haven’t been able to string it all together for an extended period of time," said South coach Brian Welsh, whose team opened play in the Mercer County Tournament with a 2-1 win over Ewing on Saturday. "We don’t focus for a full 80 minutes and we don’t play hard all 80 minutes.
"There have been times this year where we have played some great soccer. And there have been times this year where we have not played up to our potential. It’s something we know about, but I haven’t done a very good job correcting it."
WW-P South was one of three Packet-area teams to advance to the quarterfinals of the MCT with wins on Saturday. Hun, the No. 8 seed, advanced to face top-seeded Steinert with a 2-1 win over Pennington. Princeton, the No. 11 seed, picked a 2-0 win over sixth-seeded Lawrence. In the quarterfinals, which will be played today after rain postponed the games from Monday, South will host Hopewell Valley, Hun will play at Steinert, and Princeton will play at Notre Dame.
The MCT semifinals will be played Thursday at Mercer County Park, with the finals slated for Saturday at Mercer County Community College.
West Windsor-Plainsboro North fell into the losers’ bracket after the second-seeded Knights were upset by Nottingham, 1-0, on Saturday.
In its win over Ewing, South received goals from Ori Kalmus and Rob Engel. For Kalmus, it was his ninth of the season. Welsh can only hope that as his team entered the tournament season, it has found itself playing its best soccer.
"Sometimes I think we’re so close," said Welsh, whose team improved to 10-6-1 with the win on Saturday. "I think maybe we’re a pass away or a goal away from really breaking out. This is a team that, even in games we’ve lost, we’ve never been dominated. We’ve had most of the play in every game with the exception of Shawnee and St. Benedict’s.
"But playing teams like those two makes you better. You can only improve if you see good competition and we have."
Despite the up and down season to date, Welsh likes his chances in both the MCT and the state tournament, which begins next week.
"The key to any tournament is to get that first win," Welsh said. "I think we have a good enough team to be able to run off a good streak. The key for us is to play a full 80 minutes. Once we get going, we can build and have a good streak."
Hun is another team that has seen its share of good competition. Having played the likes of St. Benedict’s and Mercersburg will only make the Raiders better as they play in two tournaments at once.
In addition to the MCT, Hun is also involved in the state Prep A tournament. As the No. 2 seed, the Raiders host Peddie 2 p.m. Wednesday with a berth in the finals on the line.
"It was a nice win for us against Pennington because they had beaten us earlier this year," said Hun coach Chris Kingston, whose team improved to 9-6-1 with the win. "We’ve got a tough week coming up. Steinert is a good team. And we’ve had so many close games with Peddie. We played them last week and won, 1-0. Since I’ve been here this is the 10th time in four years we’ll have played them and they’ve won seven of the nine. And most of those games have been decided by one goal.
"We usually see them in the states. This should be a good game. But at this point they’re all good games because of being in a tournament."
Hun has relied most of the year on a solid defense. Other than St. Benedict’s, no team has scored more than two goals against the Raiders, who have allowed just 11 goals in the 15 games played against teams other than St. Benedict’s.
"Things really turned around for us when we moved Matt Care to the back," Kingston said. "We moved Scott Loesser from forward back to the midfield and that helped. Our guys have done a good job on defense. Against Pennington, Ryan Putman did a great job marking Andrew Reeder. He really frustrated him during the game."
Princeton won its fifth straight when it topped Lawrence on Saturday. Over those five games the Little Tigers have outscored the opposition, 29-3. So a Princeton team that at one point looked as though it might not even qualify for the state tournament, seems to have gotten itself back to where it expected to be.