Woodstown clamps down on Bedderi, blanks Wildwood to reach SJ Group I semifinals for third time in four years; Schalick also reaches semis on other side of bracket, setting the potential for an all-county final
SOUTH JERSEY GROUP I
Friday’s Quarterfinals
Schalick 2, Pitman 0
Haddon Twp. 4, Audubon 0
Palmyra 2, Riverside 1
Woodstown 3, Wildwood 0
Tuesday’s Semifinals
(4) Haddon Twp. at (1) Schalick
(3) Palmyra at (2) Woodstown
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
WOODSTOWN — The lead official blew his whistle signaling the end of another Woodstown win and the players immediately knew what they had to do.
Collectively, they raced over to their newly constructed dugout and enthusiastically rang the blue ship’s bell hanging on the supporting post, validating their 3-0 win over Wildwood Friday in the South Jersey Group I boys soccer quarterfinals.
Ringing the Bell, ala the Phillies, is becoming a new tradition with the Woodstown players.
“We’ve been doing cowbells for a long time here at Woodstown, especially for boys soccer,” Wolverines coach Darren Huck said. “When the parents decided they were going to give our program these nice dugouts, they said they had a surprise.
“They had it up for the Senior Game. It’s our tradition now where I’ll select one player to ring the ball at the end when we get done talking there.”
That honor Friday went to Grant Prater, whose parents, ironically, supplied the bell for the celebration. He was more than happy to participate.
“We wanted to have a celebration like every time we scored,” Prater said. “My freshman year we started the cowbells here, I think, and every time we’d score we’d ring it, so we wanted to have one on the new dugouts and we’re bringing a big, big one, like one of the ones you have to pull down, between the manager’s table and the dugout. The big one’s going to be loud.”
Prater scored the first goal of the game 12:35 into the match when he redirected an Adrian Ibarra corner kick past Wildwood keeper Broc Denke.
But perhaps more important to the cause was the way he played all 80 minutes anchoring the defense in marking Warriors’ senior scoring machine NuNu Bedderi.
Prater and the defense shadowed Bedderi everywhere he went, limited him to a handful of touches and kept the 36-goal scorer off the scoreboard. The Warriors had scored 82 goals this season, but this was the first time they had been shut out. Bedderi had scored in 15 of their first 19 games, 13 with multiple goals.
He didn’t get his first touch Friday until midway through the first half. And when the Algerian import did manage to break through, Woodstown keeper Ben Stengel was right there to turn him away.
“I tried to keep myself in front of him, just denying him the ball every time, so they couldn’t even get it to him and then Dante (Holmes) was behind him,” Prater said. “We were kind of like keeping him sandwiched and it kind of worked.”
“For the last couple practices he knew he was going to be the guy who was going to have to shadow him, shut him down, deny him, whatever we needed to do in whatever situation was occurring on the field,” Huck said. “We had a game plan and we executed it, I think, really, really well. Everybody knew their responsibilities, they knew where we needed to be and what we wanted to do and it worked today.”
Ibarra gave the Wolverines a 2-0 lead later in the half on a penalty kick — the 49th goal of his career — and had another corner kick that produced Holmes’ second career goal with 10 minutes to play. Holmes’ two goals have come in each of the playoff games.
Holmes scored on a header inside the right post right after Denke came out following a collision with Ibarra in the box. The starting keeper returned to the goal right after the play.
“This is the first time I’ve been able to go up for corners; I’ve only started doing that half the season,” he said. “I did see that they changed goalies because of the injury, but it didn’t change how I was going to go after it. My only thing was just go at the ball, try to head it at the net and hope it goes in.”
Woodstown (16-4) now hosts Palmyra (12-7) in the semifinals Tuesday. It’s the Wolverines’ third trip to the sectional semifinals in the last four years and sixth since 2010.
“We’ve been consistent as far as winning for many, many years now, but as far as advancing further we’ve done that the last couple years,” Huck said. “Our goal this year is to go further than we did last year. You always want to do better than the year before.
“We’ve got one more game to go to get us into that situation, but part of my responsibility as a coach is to make sure we’re focused not so much on next Friday (the South Jersey championship game possibly against Schalick), but on this coming Tuesday. Friday will happen if we take care of Tuesday.”
NOTES: The win was Woodstown’s seventh in a row and ninth in their last 10 games. The shutout was their seventh … With his next goal Ibarra will become the fourth player in Woodstown boys history with 50 career goals. He’s already fifth in the all-time points list … Huck and Schalick coach Joe Mannella have been invited to coach in the South Jersey Coaches Association All-Star Game Nov. 26 at Rutgers-Camden. The Tri-County Conference All-Star Game is the day before.
SCHALICK 2, PITMAN 0: After a scoreless first half, the Cougars got goals from Oscar Hernandez and Luke Price. Evan Sepers made five saves in recording the Cougars’ second straight playoff shutout and fifth in their last six wins.
Their semifinal matchup with Haddon Twp. is a rematch of last year’s semifinals (won by Schalick 1-0) and gives the Cougars a chance to avenge their 1-0 opening-round loss in the Coaches Cup, their only loss in their last 15 games..
Cover photo: Woodstown’s Grant Prater earned the right to ring the ball for his play in the Wolverines’ 3-0 playoff victory over Wildwood Friday.
Riverview Sports News 