AHS boys soccer advances to semifinals
By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
When the pressure rose steadily, Ryan Waldie tried to stay as calm as possible.
It paid off as the Allentown High School senior converted a pair of crucial penalty kicks to help the Redbirds advance into the Central Jersey Group III semifinals with a sudden death shootout over Nottingham on Friday.
”The intensity obviously gets higher when it’s tie game and goes into overtime and penalties,” Waldie said. “There’s definitely more pressure.
”I’m pretty confident in my penalty. I like to go the same spot every time. I was pretty confident. We practice penalties all the time in practice. I was pretty confident in all our guys to come through.”
The Redbirds didn’t prevail until their 11th penalty kick, when Allentown senior goalie Bob Millar scored a penalty kick after he stopped a Nottingham penalty kick to end the contest.
”I was just praying that Bob would end it for us,” Waldie said. “He eventually did. He loves taking (penalty kicks). He always asks coach to take them.”
Millar was credited with 25 saves in the game as neither team could score through regulation or overtime. That forced one of the longest penalty kick displays in state tournament history.
”I’ve never been a part of that many shots,” said Allentown head coach Andrew Plunkett after his team improved to 14-4-1. “They weren’t missing. We weren’t missing. Bob saved one PK. Then he made his and that’s what won it.”
The win pushed the third-seeded Redbirds into Tuesday’s scheduled CJ III semifinal at second-seeded Freehold Borough, where they hope to keep their breakthrough season going.
”We’ve been progressively getting better,” Waldie said. “Last year, we won one game of states and then lost in the second round.”
This year, penalty kicks helped push them another step further. Waldie was clutch, first in the first five kicks. After Allentown missed an early kick, Waldie delivered a score to cut the Nottingham lead to 3-2. Millar did the rest by saving a Nottingham kick, converting his own, then making another save to force sudden-death kicks.
”We had two misses in the first round, but our goalie came up real big,” Waldie said. “He saved one, made one, saved one. After we missed the two, I was still pretty confident. Bob’s a great goalie. My confidence didn’t go down too much.”
Waldie showed ice in his veins as he then took the first kick of the sudden-death portion and connected to get the Redbirds started right.
”There’s obviously a lot of pressure coming into a state game like that,” he said, “but I try to treat every game the same.”
This game was a far cry from the first time the two teams met, a 4-1 Allentown win.
”They came out with a lot more intensity,” Waldie said. “They came after us. They played a lot harder than they did last time. We just weren’t finishing chances.”
The Redbirds defense, which has been so good all year, again came up big to preserve the shutout. Waldie, who plays the left side, along with center defender Brian Bennett, and right defender Ryan Darroll, along with stopper Nick Caruso limited the scoring chances for Nottingham. All but Darroll are seniors, and that experience has helped all year.
”Our defense has been real solid throughout the year,” said Waldie, who is in his second year of varsity. “We haven’t really had to change anything.”
The Redbirds don’t want to have to go through such an exciting ending to continue their state run. Allentown is hoping it can raise its level of play to make the final that is scheduled for Thursday.
”The thing I’ve been stressing is intensity,” Plunkett said. “We’ve been lacking it throughout the season. I’ve told them, if all else fails, play hard. Work through the adversity. They worked hard. They never stopped. They kept plugging away.”
The Redbirds were able to match Nottingham’s intensity. Then they were able to show their heart as they fought through penalty kicks to finally advance in the state tournament.
”In preseason, our team said we were a state threat,” Waldie said. “We were coming in thinking we should have a good team. We just have to keep playing the way we are, and keep doing what we’re doing.”