Cougar boys’ soccer knocks off Bridgewater
By: Bob Nuse
When Mike Paftinos is around the ball, good things usually happen for the Montgomery High boys’ soccer team.
Last Thursday, Paftinos was around the ball enough to assist on one goal as Montgomery upset previously undefeated Bridgewater, 3-1. Two days later, he scored a goal for the Cougars as they topped West Windsor-Plainsboro South, 3-2, for their fifth win in seven games. Overall, Montgomery is now 5-4-1 on the season.
In each game, sophomore Manny Pastrello scored twice for the Cougars, who seem to have their game heading in the right direction.
"It was a good week for us," said Montgomery coach Bob Schwartz, whose team will play at Hillsborough today. "The Bridgewater game, we played well and that was a big win. We had a disappointing loss to Ridge a couple of days before. That was a game where we dominated for 80 minutes and they scored on a counter-attack goal. But soccer is a weird game like that, where the best team doesn’t always win. It was a game we should have won and we were 3-4-1 and faced with having two more games with Bridgewater, two with Hillsborough, plus the county tournament game that if we win, we get Pingry in the next round. So we were looking at it as we really needed to steal a game against either Bridgewater or Hillsborough.
"We finished our chances and Manny had a couple of goals. Mike had a real nice goal and he’s a player who is always involved in the goals. It was just a real nice win for us, which we followed up with another good win against South."
Since an 0-2-1 start, the Cougars have righted themselves and are playing good soccer at both ends of the field. They’ve scored 16 goals in the last seven games, while allowing just seven. But no win was bigger than the one against Bridgewater, a team the Cougars have always had problems with.
"That was a huge win," said Paftinos, who has six goals and five assists for a team-high 11 points. "It was the first time we’ve beaten them since I’ve been on varsity. Last year we lost to them once in overtime and then we lost the second game, 1-0. So we were close, we just couldn’t win.
"And then we followed that up with a good win (against WW-P South). We started off strong with two goals."
Even as the Cougars move above .500, they know there is still work to be done. The schedule doesn’t get any easier as they face Hillsborough today and later in the week open Somerset County Tournament play against Franklin on Saturday. A win in that game means a date with top-seeded Pingry.
"Right now is when we’re getting into the prime part of our season," Paftinos said. "This is what we’ve worked and practiced for. We started a little slow, but now it seems like we’ve got things figured out. The season didn’t start out the way we wanted it to, but it seems like now we’re shaping up and hopefully it will carry over into the county tournament and the state tournament.
"Our record doesn’t look strong right now, but we’ve had some good wins and hopefully we can have a good season."
Schwartz is hoping the win over Bridgewater is the kind that can springboard the Cougars into the toughest part of the season.
"We needed a win for the states, but we also needed a win for our team," the first-year head coach said. "That victory really picked us up. They’re a really good team and Matt Kassel is a very talented player. Jon Freimark marked him the whole game and did a very nice job. There was a 50-50 ball and Matt got hurt. I felt like with him not out there, we matched up well with them. We had a plan and we stuck with it and it worked.
"I felt like that was a pretty good win. We were coming off a good win on Thursday and usually after you have a win like that, when you play anybody else it’s hard to get ready for the next game. That was our challenge and we had to handle it like another Bridgewater game. It was good to get two goals early like we did."
Now the Cougars need to carry that momentum into the second half of the season. The offense has been steady, with Pastrello and Paftinos leading the way with six goals apiece. So far, six other Cougars have scored this season, which makes them a tough team to defend.
"I just try to get involved and keep possession of the ball," said Paftinos, who has been directly involved with 11 of the team’s 23 goals this season. "That’s what we do best. I’ve always been a center midfielder, but I’ve always been more of an assists guy. This year I’ve scored more goals. But we have a team with a lot of different guys who can score goals, that’s one of our strengths."

