Cougars back in CJ IV final
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
It’s been a long road back for Melanie Marbach.
And with one swift kick on Tuesday, she made it all worthwhile.
Marbach’s goal just over nine minutes into overtime lifted the Montgomery High girls’ soccer team to a 1-0 win over Steinert in the Central Jersey Group IV semifinals. It was just Marbach’s second goal this season, which has seen her make a steady return from a serious knee injury she suffered in the spring.
”It was good to see,” Montgomery coach Jeremy Beardsley said of Marbach’s game-winning goal. “I’ve been asking for more and more from Melanie. I don’t know if it’s fair coming off the kind of injury she had. She has just been trying to give more and more.
”(Monday) in training she just had another level to her. She came out and got a lot of playing time. A majority of it was coming out of her training from yesterday. I really had a good feeling about her today.”
The Cougars were locked in one of those soccer games where one team seems to dominate, but knows it only takes a moment for the other team to reverse field and score a goal that could win the game. Montgomery outshot Steinert, 19-6, but just could not get a goal until Marbach finally scored in overtime.
”It had the makings of it, especially against Steinert because they are so dangerous,” said Beardsley, whose team improved to 19-0-1 and will host Brick Memorial in the CJ IV championship game today at 2 p.m. “They can play a 50-yard ball into the box and if we make one little mistake it’s over. It almost happened a couple of times. We got lucky that they missed a couple of opportunities like that.”
Finally, Marbach took a great pass from Emily Knesevitch and deposited it in the goal for the win. She had been denied a goal just moments earlier after having been inserted into the game midway through the overtime period.
”She came across and the goalie had a great save on that first shot,” Beardsley said. “So she was robbed just moments before that. It was a great play from Emily to set it up, just a brilliant ball behind their defense.”
And for Marbach, it was a sweet moment after the long road back from her knee injury.
”I hurt my knee in the spring,” the sophomore said. “It’s been a long road back. I couldn’t start the season because of my team because it wasn’t six months yet. So it’s been a long way back. I was looking for a way to prove myself finally and it came.
”It was frustrating when we weren’t scoring. They are a good team and we just wanted it. We didn’t want them to score and then be done.”
Thanks to another solid effort by the Montgomery defense, that never had a chance to happen. Ally Mancino made four saves and the back three of Alyssa Bull, Lexi Simon and Casey Niper kept the Spartans from any serious scoring attempts.
”We lost three players on the back line who were legit Division I players,” Beardsley said. “The whole back line is new. Casey has never played there. Lexi has never played there and neither has Alyssa. We’ve given up five goals with 15 shutouts. And we have a D-I goalkeeper, too. She didn’t have to do a whole lot today because of the way the girls played in front of her.
”There were a couple times where we were a little out of shape and they came around on transition a little bit. But we did a good job of covering ground in the back. They do a great job of defending as a unit. We cover spaces and we defend together. They do such a great job of being in the right space.”
And now the Cougars are just one win away from a CJ IV championship. And they can thank their always-stingy defense and an opportunistic Marbach for the opportunity.