Watchung Hills boys soccer punches ticket to SCT quarterfinals
WARREN - Pawel Cudnoch scored twice and Liam Scanlon posted a shutout as the eighth-seeded Watchung Hills High School boys soccer team advanced to the Somerset County Tournament quarterfinals with a 2-0 victory over No. 9 Hillsborough on Saturday.
The Warriors (3-4) will face top-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan next Saturday. The winner of that game will meet either No. 5 Montgomery or No. 4 Bernards in the semifinals on Oct. 22.
"We didn't really know much about Hillsborough, all we got to know was their record, and coming into the game we didn't try to focus on their record, we tried to just look at them as another team," Cudnoch said. "We come out to every game the same way, same mentality, and we just came out, fought as hard as we could and got the win."
On Saturday, Watchung Hills started strong against Hillsborough, scoring just 11 minutes into the contest. Ryan Santos played a ball up to Cudnoch, who beat his defender and sent a shot wide past Raiders goalie Nick Burd for the 1-0 advantage.
Hillsborough (2-8) tried throughout the rest of the half to get past the Warriors' defense, but Watchung Hills held tight. In the second half, the Raiders' defense suffered a misstep, and Cudnoch made them pay. He again took another pass from Santos, beat his defender and sent a shot at Burd, who made the save but couldn't corral the rebound. Cudnoch was waiting and he buried his second attempt for a 2-0 lead with 12 minutes to play.
"We have a lot of communication, a lot of ball movement, a lot movement off and on the ball, so there was a lot of connections," Cudnoch said of the offense. "We really tried to fill in the midfield and we just filled out all the gaps so we had them beat."
With less than 10 minutes remaining Hillsborough was awarded a penalty kick. Liam Jurkowich lined up to take the shot, and sent it to the left side of the net, but Scanlon was there to make the save and preserve the shutout.
"I just focused on the ball the entire time, I didn't look at him, then I faked to the left and dove to the right and luckily he went there too," Scanlon said. "I really wanted (the shutout), I was working my butt off on that PK, I'll be honest. I was just very focused."
Scanlon made 10 saves for Watchung Hills' first clean sheet of the season. For Hillsborough, Burd made six saves.
The Warriors started the season on a shaky note, going 1-3 before bouncing back with a win over Franklin. The team then suffered a 4-1 loss at the hands of Bridgewater-Raritan last week, so bouncing back against Hillsborough was a step in the right direction for Watchung Hills, which will face Hillsborough again next week before a rematch against the top-seeded Panthers in the quarterfinals.
"I think that we came out with a lot of passion, a lot of intensity," Cudnoch said. "We came out from a tough loss to Bridgewater, and we fought the whole game and really we just tried to keep that momentum going, so we came into this game fired up, pumped up, ready to get that first county win and we're looking forward to seeing Bridgewater again."
Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego