The River Dell Hawks defeated Clifton 15-13 on Monday to clinch a spot in this year’s NJSIAA playoffs.
“We had to win three out of our last four games to get to .500 and make the playoffs,” explained senior John Sherlock. With one more game remaining against Fair Lawn, the senior attackman said that he was happy to get it done today rather than having to fight for it on Saturday.
Clifton led early in the game, but the Hawks battled back to eventually take a 6-5 lead at the half.
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The game remained close throughout the third quarter. With River Dell holding a slim 10-9 lead with under 10 seconds left in the period, the Hawks got perhaps the most significant goals of the game. River Dell got a long clearing pass from deep in their end that John Sherlock scooped up near the front of the Clifton net.
He managed to fire it home with just four tenths of a second remaining on the clock to give River Dell all the momentum needed to carry them through the rest of the game.
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A short time later, Mike Monopoli made a leaping grab of a high pass, carried it into the box where he used a spin move to avoid two Mustang defenders and then finished off his play-of-the-game by ripping a shot into the net.
The Hawks went on to take a four goal lead before giving up a couple of late goals to make this game look closer than it really was.
John Sherlock scored 5 goals and had 3 assists to lead the way for River Dell. Steve Luca had a hat trick and an assist. Mike Neville had a pair of goals and Evan Rowley scored twice to go along with a couple of assists. Mike Monopoli, Justin Kuchar and Kevin Barry each had goals for the Hawks.
At the end of the game, senior Silas Kim, an anchor on the defensive side, just couldn’t wait to check the official scorebook to confirm that he was credited with an assist.
“That’s my first point of my career,” said a jubilant Kim.
Kim and the rest of the playoff-bound Hawks have one last regular season game to play when they host the Fair Lawn Cutters on Saturday, 3pm.