By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
On X @tortreports
WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP — Kingsway Regional High freshman Talia Griscom always seems to be in the right place at the right time.
The rookie scored a game-sealing insurance goal as fourth-seeded Kingsway cruised to a 3-0 victory over No. 12 Gloucester County Institute of Technology in the quarterfinal round of the NJSIAA South Jersey Group 4 playoffs on Thursday.
The shot was taken by junior Alyssa Reiter and the ball bounced off the goalie’s hands directly to Griscom for the goal.
“Alyssa had an open shot,” she said. “I was trying to get out of her way, I didn’t want to interfere with it. As soon as it hit the goalie’s hand, I saw her drop it. I had to get right on it and put it away.”
Right place, right time.
Griscom now has nine goals this season playing against some of the top competition South Jersey has to offer. She’ll be on the longest bus ride of her young high school career when the Dragons travel to top-seeded Central Regional in Ocean County for a semifinal matchup on Monday. The other semifinal features No. 3 Egg Harbor Township traveling to No. 2 Eastern Regional.
“It definitely is really exciting,” she said of her play throughout the season and her team making it this far. “I don’t think I would imagine this to all happen. I think this is going to give me a lot of confidence for my next seasons in high school. This is going to make me work harder to compete with this status and play better with it.”
Said coach Bill Alvaro, “anytime you win a playoff game, you feel good. There were 32 teams left in Group 4 before today, and now there’s 16 left and we’re one of them.”
Reiter not only assisted Griscom on the last goal of the afternoon, but she also helped with the first one, drawing a foul that forced a successful penalty kick taken by Mya Narcisi. Sophia Paoletti scored the second goal for the Dragons (13-6-1, 5-2-1 Tri-County Royal). The season comes to a close for GCIT (11-9-2, 1-6-1 Tri-County Royal), which upset No. 5 Cherokee in the opening round of the playoffs.
“That was big, our goal was to come out and score early,” Reiter said. “Put something on the board early to get momentum. We were really prepared and excited for this game. We’ve been grinding all season. We came out hard and got some chances early. We were able to put them away early in the second half.”
After running cross country her freshman and sophomore seasons, this is Reiter’s first year playing high school soccer. What makes that even more impressive that she has a team-high 10 goals.
Reiter and Griscom combined account for 44 percent of the team’s goals this season — and at this time last year, high school soccer wasn’t even a thought in their minds.
“We went through some formation changes and personnel changes, and they’re starting to work really well together,” Alvaro said of the duo. “When you have the two of them along with all the other girls we have — they’re really starting to become weapons.”
Kingsway fell to Central Regional, 1-0, in the sectional final in 2023, and the Dragons will be looking to avenge that loss.
“I heard about them (Central Regional) last year,” Griscom said. “I’m pretty excited to play them. I like playing teams for the first time, it’s a nice surprise.”
The semifinals are Monday, with the final is slated for next Thursday at the highest remaining seed.
Added Alvaro, “you want to be hitting your stride at this time of the season. I think they’re just excited to move on. Their team is different from last year, our team is different from last year. This is the third time in four years we’ve been to the semifinals, so they’re excited.”
So does Griscom think her Dragons can surprise the Golden Eagles, who are riding a six-game winning streak into the semifinal?
“I think (it would be) exciting to surprise them,” she smiled. “I’m pretty excited for that game and how it’s going to play out.”
Click this link to watch the ‘Sideline Snippets’ series, where correspondent Brian Tortella hands a Go-Pro video camera stick to players after the game and they talk about the victory:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCHWlgeRTD_/?igsh=MW1pdGNjOWZkcGxnaw==
Contact Brian Tortella: btortreportssj@gmail.com.
