By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
HI-NELLA — Coming off the 2024 Group 2 state championship, players and coaches on the Sterling High boys soccer team know they are going to get everybody’s best shot this season.
They got all they could handle from a motivated Haddon Township team on Tuesday afternoon, but the Hawks were thwarted by a solid Silver Knights defense and an opportunistic offense that came through with less than five minutes to play. Scoreless for 75 minutes, Sterling broke through off a corner kick as Ethan Weitzel delivered a pass to junior center back Carson Wiley, who was wide open for a header to the near post.
That was the only tally of the game, as Sterling escaped with a 1-0 win over the Hawks and ran its winning streak to 10 games and unbeaten streak to 11. The Knights’ last loss came nearly a year ago, in late October of 2024, a 1-0 setback against West Deptford. After that game, Sterling tied Haddon Heights, and the Knights haven’t lost since.
“We see them twice a year in our division and have a ton of respect for them. They are really good. They are a great Group 1 team. Today just came down to us making one more play than them. That’s all it was. We made one play in the box and were able to put a goal away, but that’s the only thing that separated us,” said Sterling coach Pete Marlys, whose team went 14-5-5 last year but got hot late in the season and ripped off six straight wins in the state playoffs. “(Sneaking up on people) is not going to happen again, but the story this year is, are we rebuilding? We keep saying we’re not. We’re still at the level we want to be at as Sterling soccer. This year, though, we might surprise some people again just because of how many guys we graduated. We graduated eight starters, so many of these guys are playing their first varsity minutes or starting for the first time.”
Haddon Township (2-1, 0-1 Colonial Liberty) had a golden opportunity early, but sophomore Brody Beals’ shot rang off the left post. The Hawks dominated possession for much of the first half and had a handful of good scoring chances in the second half, but never really got the kind of shots on goal they were looking for.
“They are a very talented team. We watched (some highlights) on Jersey Sports Zone from their game against Pitman, and they’re nice. It took us a minute to find the offense, but when we found the gas we found Wesley (Reich, junior forward) and tried to play through on that side,” Wiley said. “We just found the gaps. They put another guy in the midfield, which slowed our midfield down a little bit, so we had to play a smarter high line. We had to find Wesley (on the outside) and Casmir (Okoro, sophomore striker) in the gaps.”
The Hawks’ inability to get one through left the door open for Sterling (3-0, 1-0 Colonial Liberty), and the Knights finally found what they were looking for off a set piece, which were hard to come by against Haddon Township’s defense. Wiley was unmarked at the near post, and a little flick of his head poked the ball into the net for the decisive score.
“We were looking for back post, but they left the front post open, and the big dog (Wiley) got it done. He finished in the back of the net, and that’s all we wanted. A big guy like him, we trust him enough to get it done and he did it,” Weitzel said. “They are very defensive in the midfield and have a lot of midfielders behind the ball. They were pressuring us in the midfield, but once we learned how to play through that, we were amazing on the ball.
“Everyone knows who we are and they watch tape on us. We just have to play our game and show who we are.”
“We do that in practice every day, working on free kicks. Normally, I’m not in on those much, but it worked out today,” Wiley said. “We have a chip on our shoulder. In every game we feel pressure, but ultimately this is a whole new team. We have a few guys back from last year, but we’re in a big building stage. We don’t think of it as a process, we just think of it as playing the next game, and every game is winnable.”
The Wiley-led Sterling defense has allowed just one goal so far in the first three games of the season, and the Knights have outscored opponents 6-1. They’ll have some tough tests coming up before the calendar flips to October, including teams like Haddonfield, West Deptford, Moorestown and Haddon Heights, as well as Haddon Township again, Sept. 29 on the road.
“We’re really excited about the group we have,” Marlys said. “We didn’t know where we would be at this point of the year — and I still think there are going to be some highs and lows and some growing pains, but we’re excited about the talent we have. It’s just, can they work through the inexperience and find the results? And today they did that.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Sterling hosts Haddonfield on Thursday at 4 p.m. Haddon Township hosts Lindenwold on Thursday at 4 p.m.
