Millburn Boys Soccer Advances to Section Finals

It seems Cranford may have found a nemesis in Millburn.

For the second straight day a top-seeded Cranford soccer team was bounced from the North II Group 3 state sectional semifinals against a fourth-seeded Millburn squad. This time around it was the Miller boys who left Memorial Park in Cranford with a 1-0 win and a second consecutive berth into the sectional finals.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” said Millburn head coach Rob Grosso. “This year, a lot of programs thought Millburn was not going to be as successful. Right now, we’re doing a good job at it. Hopefully if we stay healthy, we’ll continue to compete.”

It was a match-up of county champions, as Millburn won Essex and Cranford won Union. The Cougars came into the contest without a loss this season at 22-0-2 and were considered among the top teams in the state. But the Millers play in what is likely the most difficult division in the state, the SEC American, and it showed during this afternoon’s win.

“It’s big. It’s something that we use as a motivator for the boys,” Grosso said. “We play in a really good conference, we get quality competition game in and game out. That’s something that I addressed at the beginning of this game.”

Millburn got its lone goal from sophomore Drew Rosenberg. With 16:25 left to play in the game, Millburn’s Max Okinow threw in the ball inside of the Cranford goalie box. Senior David Westlake deflected the ball towards Rosenberg, who was set up perfectly at point blank range.

“It’s exciting. I was there [at the sectional finals] last year and I’m happy to be back,” Rosenberg said.

“I’ve always known that Drew had a good shot so I wasn’t actually that surprised,” said Millburn co-captain Chris Benedict. “In the first half, he had another chance that he didn’t go to, so he made up for it with this one.”

The one score would be enough for Millburn, which played suffocating defense throughout, especially Benedict, who refused to let anything get by him today.

“They played very well. Defensively we were good, Chris was unbelievable,” Grosso said. “It was a great performance.

“We had a big effort out of Jeff Wang. He had to mark their best scorer. He played a great game today marking him and he didn’t give him any space,” Benedict said.

Millburn came out aggressively and completely dominated the first half, though the score did not represent that with the teams entering the half knotted at zero. However, the Millers out-shot the Cougars 12-4 in the first 40 minutes and possessed the ball for most of the half.

“They were able to bounce on a ball in the box and we didn’t,” said Cranford head coach Mike Curci. “They had the better of the play in the first half, but in the second half I thought we played at least even. We put a lot of pressure on, they had chances, we had chances. They put one in and we didn’t. That’s basically what it comes down to.”

During the second half, the squads played much more evenly. Neither team took very many chances on the net. Cranford controlled the ball more in the second half than it did in the first but were still not able to get that one clean look on net. Many of their shots went wide, high or never happened because of Millburn’s defense.

The Millers did not have a slew of chances either in the second half, only taking four shots but made one of them count.

On Friday afternoon, Millburn will attempt to continue to keep its sectional and group title defense in tact against second-seeded Scotch Plains, which defeated New Brunswick Tuesday 2-1.

For Cranford, despite the loss, the Cougars have had their best season in school history. Their 22 wins was the most ever by a Cranford boys soccer team and the Union County title they won this past weekend over Westfield, was also the first in team history.

“We’re disappointed, but I don’t think we have a bunch of guys who are going to be teary eyed over this,” Curci said. “They may, when they get home, be a little upset. But like I told them, [they] have done something that no one has ever done here before. …We have everything to be proud of and nothing to hang our heads about here."