Boys soccer: Penalty kick turns the momentum for Newark

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NEWARK -- Soccer matches can often turn on just one play.

Nearly everybody on the field agreed what that play was in Newark's 5-2 nonconference win over IMSA Tuesday.

In the first four minutes of the first half, IMSA (0-6) managed two shots on goal from Paul Chung and looked to be in control. But with 35:57 left, Newark senior Noel Cabadas was awarded a penalty kick and buried it into the low, right corner against IMSA keeper Alek Poniatowski and the Norsemen took control of the match.

"I think that kind of helped us get back in the game," Cabadas said. "The goal changed the momentum."

The Norsemen (3-4) rode the momentum of the penalty kick to a 4-0 lead by the 10:53 mark of the first half. Cabadas scored the second goal, hitting the low left corner on a one-on-one with 18:44 left. Moments later, Cabadas fired a corner kick towards IMSA's goal. The ball got loose and Mike Larson punched it into an empty net to make it 3-0.

Juan Elizalde capped the first-half scoring on a one-on-one play, though Poniatowski got a finger on the ball before it floated into the net.

"That definitely was a killer," IMSA coach Brian Frank said of the penalty kick. "Unfortunately, we really played flat the next 15 minutes and that short span, the game got away from us. We finished the first half tough and made some adjustments at halftime."

Before those adjustments were able to have an effect, however, Newark pushed the lead to 5-0 a mere 1:50 into the second half. Kurt Anderson fired a shot that bounced off of Poniatowski right back to him, and he deposited into the net.

But from there, the Titans controlled the match. Moving junior sweeper Jonathan Czerwonka up to an outside midfield position helped him facilitate the offense, IMSA took advantage.

With 31:16 left, Asa Brockman scored off a feed from Samir Mishra to break the shutout. With 1:56 left, IMSA struck again. Chung's corner kick bounced off of Newark keeper Tyler Andersen and Kevin Lam flew in with a header to score.

IMSA outshot and outscored Newark in the second half.

"Second half, actually, they controlled more of it than we did," Newark coach Bill Suhayda said. "I was trying to make some substitutions so that may have been part of it. We're a little bit disorganized in the back and we're not playing together very well, not communicating as well as I think we should be. We're not moving to the ball as well as we should be. We have a lot of work to do. We're not there yet. We haven't reached our potential yet.

"All I can say is that we were sitting back a little bit. We weren't pushing as hard as we did in the first half."

With the win, the Norsemen were able to put their recent 8-0 loss to last year's Class 1A runner-up Earlville, a Little Ten Conference rival, behind them.

"It feels pretty good after the loss we had to Earlville," Cabadas said. "We worked hard since that loss."

Boys Soccer: Newark 5, IMSA 2