By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher EGG HARBOR CITY — The Cedar Creek girls soccer team came into the South Jersey Group 2 playoffs on Monday afternoon as a No. 1 seed for the first time in school history. The Pirates played like being the top-seeded team was old hat. Led by a four-goal outburst by sophomore Kayla Bieniakowski, the Pirates cruised past 16th-seeded Collingswood 6-0 to earn a second-round home matchup with No. 8 West Deptford, a 2-1 winner over ninth-seeded Deptford. Bieniakowski said despite the seeding disparity, the Pirates weren’t taking anything for granted and wanted to get out to a quick start, especially coming off a 3-1 loss to Middle Township last week that cost Cedar Creek the Cape-Atlantic League National Conference championship. “It feels so good. I know our team has been working really hard. We’ve had a couple of rough games, but we’re really coming back now and I’m happy with how we are playing,” Bieniakowski said. “There’s a lot of pressure. Everyone knows about us now and knows we are a threat. You don’t know if (Collingswood) is going to be good because you don’t really know who they play. Just because they are a No. 16 seed doesn’t mean anything.” 
Cedar Creek’s Emily Frazee tries to get around Collingswood’s Bobbi O’Neill during the Pirates’ win over the Panthers on Monday in the first round of the state playoffs. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) Natalie Worth got Cedar Creek (15-2-1) on the board in the 10th minute, then Bieniakowski scored her first two goals to give the Pirates some breathing room. She utilized nearly every quadrant of the goal with her four tallies. Her first goal came after she took a through ball from midfielder Shayla Murray and deposited a shot into the lower right corner of the net. Later in the first half, she took a pass from Cailey McGloin and was one-on-one with the Panthers’ keeper. A nice little touch sent a shot into the right side of the net to make it 3-0. McGloin got on the board with time running out in the first half, running onto a pass from Emily Frazee before chipping a shot over the keeper’s head to make it 4-0. Bieniakowski finished off the Panthers (6-13-1) by scoring a pair of goals within about a minute of each other early in the second half. On the first, she ran onto a pass from Alina Nelson and had another one-on-one situation. She tucked a shot neatly into the lower left corner to make it 5-0. Moments later, Bieniakowski made a run up the middle, got a pass from Murray and stroked a shot into the upper left corner of the goal. “I honestly have no idea. I thought it would be a game where I would be getting more assists than goals. I surprised myself, really,” Bieniakowski said of her scoring outburst. 
Cedar Creek’s Kayla Bieniakowski battles for possession with Collingswood’s Debbie Baran, left, and Sam Hamrick. “She’s a great player. They are going to go up and down throughout the year, but she came up big when she needed to,” said first-year Cedar Creek coach Danielle Hagel. “Whatever works, whatever combination of girls that is going to work on a given day, that’s who we are going to go with. It seems like they are all coming together.” Despite being the top seed, Bieniakowski said the Pirates were relaxed and ready to go on Monday. The playoffs provided a new opportunity to put the tough loss against Middle Township behind them, she said. “Against Middle, I think we just psyched ourselves out, really. We beat them before but that didn’t count for the conference,” Bieniakowski said. “Now we are actually thinking more and playing like a team, like we did before.” “That was my goal between that loss to Middle and now, that time between these games, was to just get them mentally focused. They did their job,” Hagel said. “I just told them they needed to put some goals away early and get the momentum, and really control the game from the opening whistle. We want to make it our game from the beginning. My whole thing from the beginning of the season was making them believe in themselves and know that they can do it, and I think they are finally realizing that they can.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
Girls soccer: Bieniakowski’s four goals help top-seeded Cedar Creek cruise into second round of state playoffs
