Penns Grove scores in first 20 seconds of the match, goes on to beat Pennsville in boys soccer, includes Wednesday’s Salem County results
WEDNESDAY BOYS SOCCER
Penns Grove 2, Pennsville 0
Pitman 6, Salem 0
Woodstown 4, Salem Tech 0
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE – If you missed the start of Wednesday’s Penns Grove-Pennsville soccer game, even by a minute, you missed half of the goals in the game.
Junior midfielder Joey Schultz packed a pass from Sebastian Hernandez into the upper right corner 21 seconds into the match to send Penns Grove on its way to a 2-0 victory that garnered the Red Devils some valuable power points.
“I can’t remember one happening that fast, to be honest with you,” Penns Grove coach Mano Massari said. “I’ve been here about nine years coaching, started four years here as a player, I’ve never seen one that fast.”
The goal wasn’t a case of the Red Devils simply kicking the ball into the Pennsville end, chasing it down and putting it away before anyone knew what hit them.
Pennsville went long with the opening kick as it’s been known to do when it gets the first ball. The Red Devils gained possession and Hernandez made a long run up the right wing with Schultz trailing right behind.
Hernandez drew in a couple defenders, saw an open space and pushed a Bangu ball to Schultz who had peeled off towards the six in the box and beat Eagles keeper Coen Rinnier.
“We’ve been working on that a lot, transitioning from defense to offense,” Massari said. “We feel like we’ve lacked doing that early in the season. We’ve been practicing transitioning up together as one and what we’ve been practicing’s been working, and it showed there in the first 20 seconds of the game. That’s why we practice these things.”
Schultz remembers getting an assist that early in a game with his club team before, but he’s never scored that quickly before. He was looking forward to seeing the replay on the game film.
“That spark came through,” he said. “It really made me feel good. It brought a lot out of me. It makes me want to take this a little more serious, I guess.”
It certainly got the Eagles’ attention. No one ever expects to be in catch-up mode that quickly into a match.
“I had barely turned around and the ball was in the back of our net,” Pennsville coach Derek Foglein said. “We talked about the fact that this season when we’ve been on the front foot and we’ve jumped on teams it made the difference and when good teams come out and jump on us it makes a difference. Ultimately, that was a huge difference there.
“That first goal, when you blink and now you’re chasing the game … We knew they were a really strong defensive team so trying to find one goal was going to be hard enough and now we need to find at least one to send it to overtime.”
The early goal gave the Red Devils confidence and calmed them. They made it 2-0 with 17:42 left in the half on an own goal credited to Edward Swank. The Eagles settled into the second half, but had a two-goal deficit to overcome.
Schultz wasn’t in at the finish. He hurt his right ankle playing a 50-50 ball early in the game and eventually was lifted for precautionary reasons. The Red Devils have another big game Thursday night at Pitman, a match that could keep their dream of landing a first-round home playoff game alive.
The Red Devils started the season 1-3 and lost their leading scorer to a broken leg, but they’ve won three of their last five and are now tenth in the South Jersey Group I power points standings. They’re about a half-point out of the final first-round home game in the bracket.
“We want to make it to the dance, we want to make it to the playoffs,” Massari said. “Ideally I’d like a home playoff game. I want these guys to experience that; they deserve it. We put ourselves in a hole in the beginning of the year, starting to get hot at the right time.
“I don’t want to look too far ahead. I’d like us to just focus on tomorrow. I feel good about where we’re at, I feel good about the way we’re playing, but I’m trying to get them to understand we’re not looking past our next opponent.”
WOODSTOWN 4, SALEM TECH 0: Adrian Ibarra scored twice, Bryce Ayars scored for the second game in a row and Blake Bialecki netted a goal. The win takes Wolverines coach Darren Huck to within three of 300 career coaching wins.
PITMAN 6, SALEM 0: Brayden Carr scored two goals and assisted on both of Lucas Razze’s goals to lead the Panthers (7-5-1).
Cover photo: Penns Grove’s Sebastian Hernandez pushes the ball upfield against Pennsville Wednesday.
GIRLS SOCCER
Gloucester at Schalick
Penns Grove at Paulsboro
Pennsville 6, Salem 0
Woodstown 7, Salem Tech 0: The Wolverines (9-4-1) got goals from seven players, including Talia Battavio’s 57th career goal. Their last six wins have all been by shutout.
GIRLS TENNIS
Schalick 4, Haddon Heights 1
Pennsville 5, Millville 0: Eagles coach Dan LaMont gets his 300th career win with the Pennsville girls program. (Related story posting soon)
Riverview Sports News 