Szymanik, Argueta lift Raiders in SCT
By: Rudy Brandl
Heavy rain couldn’t stop the Hillsborough High boys’ soccer team from winning Saturday’s Somerset County Tournament game. It only prevented the Raiders from scoring more goals.
Hillsborough dominated visiting North Plainfield for most of the game, which was moved to the stadium turf field, but settled for a 2-0 victory. Mike Szymanik and Mike Argueta scored attractive goals in the first half and the Raiders had several near-misses during an aggressive second half in which they continued to control the flow of play.
"We were pretty successful moving the ball around," HHS head coach Eric Puma said afterward. "We didn’t finish as well as I would have liked, but the conditions had something to do with that."
Szymanik posted the all-important first goal in the 12th minute of play when he collected a loose ball and fired home a left-footed shot to the far right post from just inside the box. On a day with less-than-ideal playing conditions, it was crucial to score first.
"I just saw an opening and hit a lefty shot," said Szymanik, whose older siblings Renee, Rob and Tom have all played soccer at HHS. "It gave us a little push. We played really well after that and kept going."
Argueta made it 2-0 with 7:40 to play in the half by rushing to the far left post and banging home a long free kick cross from senior midfielder Kevin Nunes. Argueta nailed the curling ball into the right corner to give the Raiders a more comfortable lead.
"Nobody was marking me and I got the ball right at my foot," Argueta said.
North Plainfield played well in the later stages of the first half but Raider keeper Zach Zamek came up with two nice saves to keep his team on top. Zamek stuffed a free kick and grabbed a long cross to keep the Canucks scoreless. He wound up making six saves for his fourth shutout of the year.
Puma praised his defense for stopping North Plainfield forwards Roberto Coluna and Pablo Freire, who had scored goals in their team’s big 2-1 win over New Providence the previous day. Hillsborough was missing Pat Flynn, who sat out after suffering a concussion in Thursday’s 4-1 win over Wathung Hills, but the revamped defense was superb. Alex Miska moved into the middle and Kyle Downey stepped in to play a great game on the left side.
"The people in the back played pretty solid," Puma said. "They played aggressive and they didn’t give their forwards any opportunities. We did a nice job shutting them down."
The 2-0 margin was more than enough to send the sixth-ranked Raiders (9-3-1) to No. 3 Montgomery for Saturday’s SCT quarterfinals. Hillsborough will be looking to avenge a 2-0 regular season loss to the Cougars.
"We need to play good team defense and we need to make the most of the opportunities we have because we won’t get a lot of them," Puma said. "I know we’re going to play better than we did the last time."
Hillsborough has played three games in each of the past few weeks but will only compete twice this week. After Tuesday’s road game at Franklin, the Raiders will get a few days off to prepare for the Cougars. The key to this game will be gaining possession in the midfield.
"The midfield has to mark their two center mids because they’re very skilled," Argueta said. "We have to work to try to win every ball."
"I really feel we can beat Montgomery," Szymanik added. "We had a slow start last time but we’ll give them a good fight."