Pingry boys soccer advances back to SCT final

MARTINSVILLE - The Pingry School’s boys soccer team is headed back to the Somerset County Tournament final.

Pingry, the No. 3 seed in the tournament, dispatched seventh-seeded Somerville 1-0 in the semifinals on Saturday to earn a berth in next weekend’s final. The Big Blue (10-3-1), will face fourth-seeded Bernards, which beat No. 1 Bridgewater-Raritan in a shootout in the other semifinal.

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The final will be held next Saturday at Torpey Field in Bridgewater at 3 p.m.

Pingry scored its lone goal at the midway point of the first half, as Henry Kraham slammed home a penalty kick past Somerville goalie Will Sokol for a 1-0 advantage. Despite a large amount of effort and a couple of opportunities from the Big Blue offense, it would be the only goal scored in the game.

“We knew they were a good team because they had to beat Gill (St. Bernard’s) to get here,” Kraham said. “It was definitely a wake up call, the boys definitely had to work harder than they expected to, so it was a good challenge. We didn’t think (the penalty kick) would be the only goal, but looking back it was really big we got that one early.”

Somerville had a few chances of its own, including one in the first half that hit off the center cross bar, but the Pingry defense picked up its fifth shutout of the season.

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“We were pretty confident, they beat Gill and we beat Gill, so we were pretty confident we could handle them, especially at home,” Pingry’s Obi Ikoro said. “Defensively it was great, any time you can get a shut out it’s great. It wasn’t pretty, but it was hard, and a win is a win so I’ll take it.”

Pingry advances to its third-straight Somerset County Tournament final, and it will be competing for its 20th overall title. The Big Blue shared the championship title with Montgomery last year after a 1-1 tie.

“Three years in a row, it’s nice,” Kraham said. “We usually like to rate our performances by a letter grade, so I think that today was a B+, I think to win the final we have to push it to an A-, A, but it was a hard fought win.”

Somerville (10-6-1), which was making its first appearance in a county semifinal in about 10 years, according to coach Bryan Smith, upset second-seeded Gill St. Bernard’s 4-1 in the quarterfinals last week to advance.

“It was unbelievable, we’ve been saying since day one of our season that we are as good as anybody else in the county, and the state and in our group,” Smith said. “We believed it all year long and to beat Gill last week and to come here and have a 1-0 game on a PK, I can’t be more proud of what my team has accomplished. We are as good as we know we are and I think we’ve proved it and I hope people give us the respect.”

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