An early deficit wasn’t enough to sink the Garnets on Friday night, as Rye rallied back from a two-goal hole down best rival Harrison in double-overtime on Sept. 30. For the Garnets, the win served as both a warning and as a unmistakeable sign of what the team is capable of achieving when it is playing focused soccer.
The Garnets found themselves fighting an uphill battle from the start on Friday, as the Huskies were able to use their speed and deft passing to create opportunities on counters in the early goings of the first half. The Huskies’ Taiyo Narusawa made the most of those chances, connecting on assists from Nico Acocella for two goals in the first 20 minutes of play.
But a strong second-half—led by goals from Tommy Broderick and Jonas van Beurden—helped Rye even things up and send the game to overtime where they would eventually win 3-2 on Broderick’s second of the night.
“Jonas went up for the header and got that first chance and the ball was just bouncing there,” said Broderick. “And I was able to put it in.”
Broderick admits that Rye wasn’t playing its best soccer in the early goings of the contest and that the team needed to regroup at halftime to get back in the game.
We couldn’t put our heads down; when you give up goals, you just gotta bounce back,” he said. “It’s the first time we’ve been down and had to come back this year, so it’s important that we just keep focusing on ourselves.”
Broderick also commended keeper Kyan Cox who came up big in the overtime periods with a number of acrobatic saves that helped Rye to stay afloat.
“He did an amazing job, and we needed him to do that,” said Broderick. “And I definitely think that we kind of fed off that and got some momentum back.”
With the win—and a subsequent victory over Yonkers the following day—the Garnets improved to 9-3 on the year. Harrison fell to 6-5 and will finish the regular season with a tough stretch of games that sees them take on Yorktown (11-0), Rye and Pelham (7-3) in successive games.
As the Garnets look ahead to remainder of the regular season campaign, Broderick said, the team has their sights firmly set on a deep playoff push.
“It’s always special getting a win against Harrison, it’s our rivals, it’s an overtime game,” he said. “But now we just have to move on to the next game.”
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