Scotch Plains boys soccer tops Elizabeth in overtime

SCOTCH PLAINS - It took almost 90 minutes, but in the end, the Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School boys soccer team got the victory for coach Tom Breznitsky.

Senior Robert Devine-Gelling scored the game winner with less than two minutes to play in overtime to lift the Raiders over Elizabeth 2-1 on Thursday afternoon, giving Breznitsky his 700th career victory.

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Breznitsky, who has been the coach at Scotch Plains-Fanwood for 42 years, can boast that his teams have won seven state championships, 18 sectional titles, 19 Union County Tournament crowns and 27 conference championships. And on Thursday, he gave the credit for his 700 wins to all the players he’s coached over the years.

“It’s longevity and a tremendous number of outstanding players over the years,” Breznitsky said. “We never even talked about this, maybe the kids did, 700 is another number, and I’m proud of it, but there’s a lot of things with this program that I’m especially proud of. We built a tradition. Every team that comes here, every year, every team wants to do better than the previous team. We wear T-shirts that on the back says ‘Tradition in Excellence’ and that’s what we build on.”

The win had another meaning for the Raiders (4-0) as they were able to exact a little revenge on the Minutemen (2-2), a team that knocked them out of the NJSIAA North 2 Group IV semifinals last season.

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“It was a tough loss last season,” Scotch Plains-Fanwood senior Ryan Peterson said. “We wanted to rebuild and do the same and even better than last season, so coming in beating these guys, they’re definitely a good team, so it shows that we’ve come a long way from last season and we’re ready to go.”

Peterson scored the first goal of the game with 29:19 remaining in the first half to give Scotch Plains-Fanwood a 1-0 lead. Almost six minutes later Elizabeth answered as Billy Mendoza scored on an assist from Christopher Mathurin to tie the game 1-1.

“We know they’re a good team, we know that they’re going to be able to stick around with us so it was very important to get the first goal and then we knew our fitness would carry us through,” Peterson said. “We put in a lot of work during the preseason, so we knew that we would come out on top.”

In the second half, the Raiders started to wear down the Elizabeth defense and almost scored the game winner twice in the final 15 minutes. Junior John Murphy took a pass from senior Robert Viglione that hit off the right post and bounced around the outside of the net, and a shot from Thomas DeVizio with 12 minutes to play hit off the right post.

In the end it was Devine-Gelling and the strong attacking play of the offense that earned the Raiders the win.

“I’m just really happy to get coach’s 700th win and keep our game-winning streak going,” Devine-Gelling said.

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego