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River Ridge Gets Healthy Reward

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A Tribune staff report

Published: January 25, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - Playing with a healthy squad for the first time since the second game of the season, host River Ridge stunned the No. 2-seeded Central Bears with a 2-0 victory in the semifinals of the Class 5A-District 7 tournament.

The Royal Knights (8-9-3) will face Land O' Lakes in the district final tonight after Land O' Lakes easily advanced with an 8-0 victory against Wesley Chapel.

River Ridge got second-half goals from senior forward Seth Wade and junior midfielder Vinny Panetta. Panetta's goal came in the 63rd minute and Wade's goal finished off the Bears.

"I didn't let on to the guys, but I couldn't sleep last night and I was jumping around because I liked our chances," River Ridge coach Michael McHugh said. "Being healthy was important, as well, and these guys bought into the system in place."

Central struggled to get anything past River Ridge senior goalkeeper Eric Karcinski after he returned from a serious concussion suffered a week ago. Central coach Hank Deslaurier offered no excuses for the loss.

"River Ridge had the better night, and we congratulate them on the win," Deslaurier said. "Nothing else to say."

After battling to a scoreless tie in the first half, although both teams had scoring opportunities, McHugh had a simple message coming into the second half.

"The message was to finish, and I believed that if we finished once we could finish a couple of times, and you saw that," McHugh said.

McHugh said the team must come with the same defensive energy against Land O' Lake to have a shot at another upset.

In the first game, Dominic Cutrofello had four goals and Felix Soto added three goals in Land O' Lakes' impressive victory. Alex Zimmerman had one goal.

Charles Gonzalez

Pasco, Hudson Still Striving For Goals

WESLEY CHAPEL - Most coaches - even from the best teams - believe the most nerve-racking game during a prep season isn't the championship game, but the game that decides whether the squad will go to the playoffs or not.

Those games were Wednesday for Pasco and Hudson's boys soccer teams, as the Pirates (20-4-2) beat Gulf 9-1 and the Cobras (15-5-2) edged Zephyrhills 1-0 - setting up a final between the district's top two seeds tonight at 7:30.

Pasco senior Joe Montelongo's objective all year was to break his school record for goals, 45 in 2005-06. At first, he wasn't sure how good his squad would be after losing seven starters from last year's team.

With a first-half hat trick and four goals overall, Montelongo now sits at 47 goals this season and has a county-record 142 for his career. If he can duplicate his dominant performance in the final, 50 goals seems attainable.

"That's what I was reaching for ... and I still have a couple more games to add to it," Montelongo said. "I thought it was going to be pretty rough when I came here and saw the field, because it wasn't like this Tuesday. But we did pretty good."

Buoyed by Montelongo's incredible season, another 25 goals from fellow forward Alex Hollander and the emergence of defender Ryan Lowery and goalkeeper Jacob Pollock, Pasco has outscored opponents 114-27 in 26 games, one off the team's single-season scoring record. The stats are remarkably similar to last season's region-final squad, which played 24 games and outscored the opposition 115-26.

Hudson had its own hurdles to overcome following a tumultuous 2006-07 campaign. It seems a distant memory now that seven Cobras were suspended from last year's district tournament (hosted by Hudson) when the group decided to skip class and eat breakfast at IHOP the morning of the first game.

Coach Paul Vescio has had few issues with this year's group, which realized their potential early in the season and conducted themselves with more maturity. Hudson is in the district final and regional quarterfinals for the first time since 2005.

Junior Scotty Combs, one of the breakfast boys from a year ago, scored the game-winner on Wednesday and is second in the county behind Montelongo with 36 goals. When asked about last year, Combs said the team learned a lot from the incident.

"That was so dumb. ... It made me look bad, it made our team look bad, it wasn't good," Combs said. "Yes, I did appreciate the game more after that."

Hudson will be going for its first district title since 2004, while Pasco not in Hudson's district in '04 will be going for its fifth consecutive district crown. But much of the pressure seems to be gone after all that's happened.

"We set a goal this year - we didn't want to be seeded fourth or fifth," Vescio said. "Towards the stretch when we had the second seed in sight, we knew next year was going to be really big with the nine, 10 seniors we were going to have. It was going to be our real year.

"Getting here now, early, it's going to be nice to give us a little taste. I love my guys when their backs are against the wall."

Bart O'Connell

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