By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
David Mattia has developed quite a nose for the goal., A junior at West Windsor-Plainsboro High South, Mattia reached 100 points for his career in a 13-7 win over WW-P North last Friday night. He’s already scored over 70 goals in his career with the Pirates, admittedly benefiting from some nifty passing from his best friend., “My best friend, Nick (Tello), has assisted me on many of my goals so I want to thank him for everything he does,” Mattia said after scoring three goals and assisting on five others in the win over the Knights. “We have been playing together since fourth grade. He’s the passer. he passed it to me in the 100th point. He’s probably assisted half my goals., “I used to play midfield. I kind of evolved into a goal scorer over the years. That’s my job with this team.”, Mattia and the Pirates’ offense have looked good during a 2-1 start to the season. After opening with an 8-5 loss to South Brunswick, WW-P South bounced back with the win over North and then added an 11-5 win over Lawrence. Mattia has four goals and added an assist in the win over the Cardinals., “Last year, David stepped up as a sophomore,” South coach Geoff Chrisman said. “We had Luke Merrill, who was absolutely amazing in transition. So David was finishing a lot of what we started last year. This year he is taking more of a leadership role and getting some more assists. We’re working our offense a little differently with sets and not just a lot of fast break stuff.”, Mattia has been the top scorer in an offense that seems to have quite a bit of balance. In the win over Lawrence, Charles Jiang scored a pair of goals, while Tello had a goal and seven assists. Against North, Robert Stein scored three goals, while Tello added three goals and four assists., “I think we’re solid,” Chrisman said. “We’re a little young. We have six seniors. And seven of our eight midfielders are juniors or below. One of our starting attackmen is a freshmen. So we are a young team and we are still figuring things out., “When we start to click we can really click well. We just have to learn to keep it up for four quarters. We jumped out, 7-0 (against North). We just have to keep doing the things we can do and not take our foot off the gas.”, For a player like Mattia, getting his landmark 100th point against the rival Knights made a special day all the more special., “It was awesome,” he said. “It was everything I dreamed of. We can’t take a quarter off like we did in that game. When we’re 100 percent we are tough to beat. We have a lot of juniors and we feel like we are working hard and improving all the time.”
