In his element

Penns Grove’s Guzman Silva makes 20 saves as Red Devils draw with Woodstown, Cooksey’s golden goal lifts Pennsville; Egan scores in Schalick rout

BOYS SOCCER
Penns Grove 1, Woodstown 1
Pennsville 1, Clayton 0
Schalick 6, Glassboro 0
Wildwood 6, Salem Tech 0
Salem at Gloucester Catholic

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

WOODSTOWN – Penns Grove goalie Dwayne Guzman Silva lives for these moments. The kind that keeps him on his toes, the kind that mean the difference between winning and losing (or tying as the case may be). He certainly was in his element Thursday.

Penns Grove and Woodstown were locked in a tight battle for 100 minutes. And while the keeper at the other end did his part to keep the drama going, it was Guzman Silva who made the difference in the Red Devils coming out with a 1-1 tie instead of absorbing a fifth straight loss to the Wolverines.

The Penns Grove senior keeper was credited with 20 saves in the game. He was challenged throughout the second half and overtime but continually stood his ground. 

“I live for these type of moments,” Guzman Silva said. “Competitive, especially with my friends, family (around). I like to think of it like it’s an honor to have pressure on you. People like to hate. I like haters.”

You’ll get no argument from Red Devils’ coach Mano Massari when it comes to his goalie holding up under pressure. He’s been a fan of his keeper for a long time.

“I’ve been preaching about this kid for the last four years,” he said. “I really do think he’s an absolute stud. I think he doesn’t get a lot of credit and a lot of looks because of our score sometimes. We haven’t had the strongest defense in the past. I think he has saved games from being 3-1 (instead of) 6 or 7 to 1.

“That kid, in my mind, is the greatest keeper to come through Penns Grove. In the last 20 years easily. I’ve played here, I’ve coached here. In the last 10-15 years he’s easily the best to come through here. He saved us today, he really did. He stood on his head. I told him yesterday at practice for us to be in this game you’re gonna have to stand on your head and that’s what he did. He rose up to the occasion. I think we tied the game because of him. I wholeheartedly believe that.”

The only goal Guzman Silva allowed was by Ayden Ellis with 7:50 left in the first half. He said he got his fingers on the shot in traffic around the left post, but not enough to keep the ball from getting into the goal.

Woodstown coach Darren Huck would have liked his team to have put more pressure on the keeper.

“The keeper’s good (but), I think we only tested him once and that was shot by Landon (Gugliemo early in the second half),” he said. “I don’t think we tested him enough. I give all the credit on that save, but I would have liked to have tested him more.

“Right now we’re not doing that enough. We’re not testing the goalkeepers enough. That’s happened in the Glassboro game (a 1-0 win), that’s happened in the Overbrook game (a 3-2 win), and now it’s happened in this game. We’re trying to get that linkage with each other.”

Woodstown keeper Trey Markward, meanwhile, equally stood his ground. He was credited with 13 saves. The only goal he allowed was Mario Fuentes’ game-tying penalty kick midway through the second half. The penalty came as the result of a hand ball in the box within the wall defending a free kick.

Woodstown had the best chance to end it in overtime. Jack Bucksar broke in on the left side. Guzman Silva came off his line to challenge and turned the shot away, but he left the goal open. Bryce Ayars had a clean shot at the open net, but Penns Grove’s Rooby Dorival raced back into the box and cleared the ball away, paying a physical price in the process.

“Kudos to Rooby; that kid can cover some ground,” Massari said. “He’s got long strides, he’s not scared to put his body on the line. I want my other guys to take some stock out of that. That kid put his body on the line non-stop. He saved the goal there; he flat out did. Rooby’s not there, that’s a goal and we lose the game.”

That was the Wolverines’ best chance. Seconds before the end of the first overtime Ayars redirected a corner kick with his head that Guzman Silva saved.

It was a particularly chippy game with nine yellow cards.

Cooksey golden for Eagles

PENNSVILLE – Lucas Cooksey spent the last two years playing electric guitar in the Pennsville marching band before joining the Eagles’ soccer team for the first time this season. He struck the right chord on the pitch Thursday.

Cooksey ripped home a rebound in the first minute of the second overtime to give the Eagles a huge 1-0 win over Clayton.

After the teams battled for 90 minutes, mostly in the midfield, Pennsville turned up the attack. The Eagles won the ball quickly in the second overtime and Danny Bunay Coronel fired a shot from about 20 yards out. Clayton keeper Justin Delaney made a great diving save that deflected to the other side of the goal but Cooksey was right there to tap in the golden goal.

It was his second goal of the season.

“I told him he could do both, but he’s like, no, I just want to commit to soccer,” Pennsville coach Derek Foglein said. “I said OK. I’m not going to say no to that.”

The win gave the Eagles (3-2) the early upper hand in the Tri-County Classic Division and comes on the heels of a 1-0 own-goal loss to Glassboro earlier in the week.

Pennsville keeper Coen Rinnier made two one-on-one saves on Clayton striker Jonathan Rehm in the second half to keep the game scoreless. All three of the Pennsville’s wins this season have been shutouts.

“Tuesday it didn’t fall for us, but today it did,” Foglein said. “This is absolutely huge. We’ve got a stretch of three division games in a row and this is the one we had circled that we knew was going to be the challenge and the one we needed to go get. Now we can get healthy over the weekend and fly high into hopefully games where we should be favored.”

Egan gets his goal

GLASSBORO – Unbeaten Schalick spread the wealth for the second straight game, with six different players scoring goals, but none of the goals were more well-received than the one punched home by John Egan V in the second half.

Egan, a senior fan and player favorite who’s spent much of his career on the JV side, scored the first goal of his career in the second half of the Cougars’ 6-0 victory.

Ten days earlier, in the home opener against Overbrook, the Cougars set up Egan with three good chances to score in the second half without success. Against the Bulldogs, he was right on time.

“Everybody, of course, saw what happened in the Overbrook game, everybody was rooting for him,” Schalick coach Joe Mannella said. “It was actually a pretty nice goal.

“It came from (Luke) Price being really unselfish and set him up again. This time, he was on the left side and came in with the right foot. Everybody was recording everything, cheering for him. He was so over the moon. It was good for the team.”

Egan said he was “excited” to get the goal and admitted the occasion brought him tears of joy.

‘it was a great honor to get the goal and will be cherished for the rest of my life,” he said.

The Cougars’ other goals came from Marco Spinnato, Steve Chomo, Ryan Loper and Price in the first half, and Jaxon Weber in the second. They had seven players score goals in their 7-1 win over Clayton Tuesday.

Actually, Egan had a chance to get his goal earlier. Price approached Mannella at halftime and suggested if he got taken down in the box in the second half to let Egan take the penalty kick. As fate would have it, five minutes into the second half he gets taken down in the box and Egan gets to try the PK. But the keeper stopped it.

“I’m glad he was able to get one in regular play,” Mannella said.