Hamilton ousts Ewing in MCT play-in game

HAMILTON >> One could forgive midfielder Silvio Aparicio for being uncertain about how many minutes are in a regulation soccer game, since his Hamilton West team played in a lot of matches that went longer this year.

An extra session was something the 13th-seeded Hornets finally avoided at just the right time, as they took a 3-0 victory over 18thseeded Ewing in a Mercer County Tournament play-in game Tuesday on Cowell Field at Veterans Park. West visits fourth-seeded Pennington Thursday in a first-round match-up.

“I feel like today was a special day because we played the whole … it’s 80 minutes right?” asked Aparicio after setting up Hamilton’s last two goals. “The defense played outstanding today, the midfield worked hard and up top we finally found the chances we had and put them away. That’s been a crucial thing this year up top. We haven’t been finishing as much as we should because we always make opportunities, but it’s the finishing we couldn’t find all season.”

He was talking about goals, but he very well could have been talking about finishing games. Hamilton (4-9-4) was coming off its sixth overtime game of the year, a 2-1 loss to West Windsor-Plainsboro North Monday. The Hornets went 0-4-2 in OT and blew leads in five of them.

One of those came against Ewing in early September when the Blue Devils scored late and the teams played to a 1-1 tie.

“That was the speech yesterday after the game, that it’s happened six times this year and hadn’t come out victorious in any of them,” said coach Chris Morales, whose outfit snapped a six-game losing streak. “They came out and played hard today.”

“I feel like a lot of the players just don’t see it through all the way,” Aparicio said. “We see we’re in the lead and everybody’s thinking about what’s gonna happen after the game, or what are we doing next. We gotta focus on what’s happening right now instead of thinking about moving on and forgetting about the game we’re currently playing.”

Hamilton did that to perfection this time, getting nine shots on goal while holding Ewing to two. Emil Lewandowski had an early goal called back for being offsides, but West finally scored when Dean James converted a pass from Ian Cabrera.

Leading 1-0 after halftime, Hamilton actually built on the advantage when Aparicio found Lewandowski, who slotted it in from the left side with just under 33 minutes left. West had scored more than two goals just once all season, but broke that ceiling a second time when Joseph Andyson received a feed from Aparicio, took a few dribbles and found the back of the net with 21:51 left.

It got Morales so excited he went on a cliché’ binge.

“I was telling my assistants, ‘I would love to get the third because we haven’t relaxed in two or three weeks,’” the man known as C-Mo said. “So when Emil put that one in, it was a great goal, a breath of fresh air, a sigh of relief.”

“When it was 2-0 I was telling them we gotta keep playing hard, pretend like it’s still zerozero,” Aparicio said. “We can’t let up any goals and if anything, we gotta put up more goals, which we did. It actually turned out to be a good game.”

If the Hornets have proven anything, it’s that they can compete with most sides, making them somewhat of an MCT wild card.

“We hang with every team,” Morales said. “We have a lot of confidence going into the next round.”

Follow Rich Fisher on twitter @fish4scores

Ewing (2-11-1) 0 0 – 0

Hamilton (4-9-4) 1 2 – 3

Goals: James, Lewandowski, Andyson (H). Assists: Cabrera, Aparicio 2 (H). Shots: 2 (E), 9 (H). Saves: Bolmer 6 (E), Scordato 2 (H).