GRAND FINAL: Princeton High boys’ soccer player Felipe Matar Grandi, right, controls the ball in recent action. Last Saturday, senior midfielder/forward Matar Grandi scored a second half goal for second-seeded PHS as it fell 2-1 to top-seeded and undefeated Pennington in the Mercer County Tournament final last Saturday. PHS, now 16-2, will now be competing in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Central Jersey Group 4 sectional where it is seeded first and will host 16th-seeded Montgomery in a first round contest on October 25. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Bill Alden

For the Princeton High boys’ soccer team, it was a test that it had been shooting for all fall.

Going 16-1 with 15 shutouts, PHS was on a collision course with undefeated and nationally-ranked Pennington and the powerhouses met in the Mercer County Tournament final last Saturday.

Heading into contest played at Hopewell Valley High, the second-seeded Tigers were undaunted by the prospect of taking on the top-seeded and high-powered Red Hawks, who came into the day at 12-0 with 72 goals for and just three against.

“Our guys are really confident. They were excited to play against a team that was ranked like that — they wanted to test their talents,” said PHS head coach Ryan Walsh. “Our guys play on some high level club teams, so it is not like they haven’t seen guys with their kind of talent.”

In dealing with the talented Red Hawks, PHS was relying on its stingy defensive unit top keep up its superb play.

“Our biggest point of emphasis was just our defensive shape; we have been really good all year at keeping a good defensive shape,” said Walsh. “It is one of the reasons that we don’t have many goals against. Pennington has a high-powered offense, they throw a lot of numbers forward so our task was just to stay in our shape and don’t get too stretched. It was make it really difficult on them to get in good scoring opportunities.”

In the first half, PHS made things hard for Pennington, stifling the Red Hawks until yielding a late goal.

“We were really good keeping our shape and on the goal that they scored, we were getting ready to counter and we pushed forward a little bit too much and lost the ball,” said Walsh. “We got a little stretched out, and that is how they got their goal with five minutes to go. Besides that, we were doing a really good job.”

At halftime, Walsh’s message to his players was stay the course.

“I told the guys keep the defensive shape and be confident on the ball,” said Walsh. “We were a little bit rattled in the first half when we had the ball. We panicked a little bit. I think our guys really gained confidence by realizing that they could play with them, and that confidence showed in the second half.”

Midway through the second half, PHS knitted the game as 1-1 as senior midfielder/forward Felipe Matar Grandi found the back of the net.

“Felipe had a great goal but the buildup to the play was just phenomenal, our whole midfield really just took over that game,” said Walsh. “Archie [Smith] and Harvey [Smith] played phenomenal in the second half. Felipe, Azariah [Breitman], and Pasquale [Carusone] were going at it in the first 25 minutes of the half. We had our way a little bit there.”

The high stakes battle appeared to be heading to overtime but Pennington tallied a goal in the waning moments of regulation to pull out a 2-1 victory and earn its eighth straight MCT crown.

“Both teams were playing really well, it was a display of two of the best teams in the state,” said Walsh. “I thought we were headed into overtime, but that team can score at any moment. We were killing off that game to get to overtime. On their goal, the center back made a great play. He drove forward and put our backs in a bad spot and their big Czech forward Tomas [Ludvik] made a great run.”

PHS, now 16-2, will now be looking to make another big tournament run as it starts play in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Central Jersey Group 4 sectional where it is seeded first and will host 16th-seeded Montgomery in a first round contest on October 25.

“I told our guys there was no better way to prepare for a state tournament than playing against a team like Pennington, and not to just play against them but to play with them,” said Walsh. “The game was back and forth, it wasn’t a one-sided game. They should take the confidence of that into our next tournament which starts on Wednesday. It is helpful that we played so well but a loss makes the guys even hungrier to win the next tournament.”