Chatham High School Boys’ Soccer Drops Exciting Overtime Match to Ridgewood

In a game that went back and forth, exhaustively fought by both squads, Ridgewood Boy’s soccer team’s Bassim Masri found the back of the net two minutes and 54 seconds into sudden death overtime for the 1-0 victory over Chatham High School (N.J.) Friday at Cougar Field. Connor Holt assisted on the goal.

Chatham head coach Mark Maka, although disappointed, handled the defeat with dignity, giving credit to where it was due, and said they will go back to the drawboard to work out a few kinks.

While the Chatham (1-1) defense did experience a hiccup in overtime, Maka did say it performed well for most of the game.

“That’s a very good team that we played,” Maka said of the Maroons. “We just needed to be a little cleaner for the finally third for us. Defensively, it was a just a mistake. I thought our back row played really well today.”

Each team played to a first half stalemate. The Cougar offense pressed at times, but Ridgewood’s goalkeeper Aarav Patel sparkled in net, making two impressive saves in the last 11 minutes of the first half.

Chatham junior goalie Jack Paone, however, was equally to the task, stopping a shot on net with 5:20 to go in the first half. Neither club threatened the rest of the way.

To start the second half, an offside call negated a Maroons’ goal in the first minute of action, keeping the match scoreless.

Ridgewood (1-0) applied pressure again, but Paone made another nice save with 29.53 left in the second half.

A few minutes later, smelling blood around the Cougar’s goal, Chatham’s defense was able to thwart the Maroons’ offensive attack, as its defense cleared the ball.

The Cougars had their opportunities with several corner kicks but failed to punch one into the net. Both squads traded punches in the final moments of regulation, but neither team was able to score a goal until overtime.

Maka said he was happy with Chatham’s adaptation to Ridgewood’s play after a slow start. If only the Cougars could have played mistake-free soccer in the end to pick up the win.

“We made some adjustments through the first half,” he said. “Then, I thought we started doing a better job with some of the stuff that they were brining to us. Then, I think, the game evened out a little bit for a while. Their (Ridgewood) possession was good, but I thought we put ourselves in a dangerous position to attack them. We just needed to be a little cleaner for the finally third for us.”

Where do the Cougars from here?

“We just keep moving forward,” he said. “We play in a very, very competitive league, where we are going to see a lot of good teams. So, we can’t put our heads down. It was a good test for us, and we’re just going to move forward. We’ll clean up a few things on the defensive side and see if we can find a little bit cleaner (offensive) possession at some moments.

“It’s still early in the season, so we’re still trying to find that right blend and combination of players. We have a lot of depth. We play seven, eight different guys in front four. Esteban had good moments in the midfield filling in today, so there’s enough there. We just need to find the right fit of players.”

Chatham hosts Mount Olive Monday at 4:00 p.m.

— Jerry Del Priore