Lawrenceville holds off Steinert
HAMILTON >> While Steinert High first-year varsity boys soccer head coach Anthony Tessein and Lawrenceville School 13year head coach Blake Eldridge would probably agree that there are no moral victories, they also would most likely concur that there are plenty of hard-fought losses.
Tuesday was one of those games for Tessein’s still relatively green Spartans.
At the same time, it was a hard-fought win for Eldridge and his Big Red, who pulled out a 1-0 victory at Steinert for their first win of 2016.
“Everybody worked their tails off today,” Eldridge told his veteran group after it held their one-goal lead for the final 69 minutes with the home team applying constant pressure over the final 40.
“We were able to hang in there with a physically bigger team today,” Tessein said. “This kind of an effort will be important in the motivation process.”
The Spartans did everything, but score. That was in part a credit to Lawrenceville’s defense and the secondhalf goalkeeping of senior Matt Lazarus. Of Lazarus’ six saves after taking over for junior starter Bobby Vogel, the onehanded punch save he made to knock a high shot by Steinert freshman Justin Brunow over the crossbar with 9:25 to go. It was one of the home team’s most dangerous chances in a second half in which it controlled play.
“I don’t think anyone of us is happy with this loss,” Spartans senior forward John O’Neil said. “We dominated the second half. We could have done a better job with our combinations, but we should have put one in Steinert’s Sam Cohen (9) controls the ball against Lawrenceville.
the net. A game like this will help us learn.”
O’Neil, like so many of his teammates, was on junior varsity a year ago when Steinert was going 15-5-2 in its final season under 13-year head coach Todd Jacobs. Getting used to the physicality of varsity play is crucial to the move up, and an imposing group like the Big Red will show its opposition exactly why.
Yet, while Lawrenceville controlled much of the first half in much the same way that the Spartans handled the second 40 minutes, the difference was that the visitors were able to take advantage when Steinert junior starting goalkeeper Thomas Kozemchak got caught gambling off his line 10:31 into the game.
With the Spartans’ defense doing its best to handle the Big Red’s early surges, Kozemchak came off his line when L’ville junior Meinhardt Rentrup got behind his mark to track down a swift lead pass from senior Arjun Balaraman. Rentrup headed the ball past the goalkeeper, then watched as he chased the shot back into the net, unable to knock it out.
“That was a great ball from Arjun. A lot of the credit for the goal goes to him,” Rentrup said of his first varsity goal. “Our defense kept the game locked and held off our opponent.”
Sam Beer and Alex Yang had a couple more good chances for Lawrenceville, while O’Neil, Adrian Strawinski, Maximus DiPierro, Tristan Spadola and Sam Cohen kept Steinert in the thick of things until the final whistle kept them from evening the score. Vogel 2, Lazarus 6 (L), Kozemchak 3, Jewell 2 (S).