It’s hard to recall an opening to the state tournament with the amount of upsets which took place on Monday.
At the time of publishing this, there were at least six “upsets” of lower-seeded teams toppling higher-seeded teams on Monday. Four of those came from Morris/Sussex area teams.
In the North, Public bracket, 10th-seeded Morristown- behind the first career shutout from Artie Conover- earned a 3-0 win over seventh-seeded Chatham, the first win over the Cougars in three tries this season. Luke Williams had two goals and an assist as Morristown won its fourth game in a row, and earned a Thursday date with second-seeded Livingston in the quarterfinals.
Then, ninth-seeded Mendham upended eighth-seeded Summit, 1-0 thanks to Aschille Pasquier’s late third period goal and a 30-save shutout from Brendon Eigner. It now gets to face top-seeded and defending state champion Northern Highlands in the quarterfinals on Thursday, which took down 16th-seeded Montville, 6-0.
West Morris, seeded 11th, made a bid to upset sixth-seeded Passaic Tech as it scored twice late in the game to force overtime. But, Passaic Tech’s Zach Soder won it with 4:53 to go in overtime, ending the Wolfpack’s season despite a valiant two-goal effort from Rhone Armijo.
Finally, in North, Public, 12th-seeded Roxbury saw its terrific season come to an end at the hands of fifth-seeded Ramapo, 4-1. Mikey Guadagnino made 38 saves to keep the Gaels in the game.
The North, Public Co-Op bracket saw 10th-seeded Morris Knolls-Hills- let’s not forget, the defending Co-Op champion- earn a 5-4 win over seventh-seeded Clifton United, with Eric Bourdon scoring the game-winner in the third period. It will now move on to face 15th-seeded Lakeland-Hawthorne-Waldwick- which stunned second-seeded Ramsey-Indian Hills, 3-2.
And how about Park Regional? The 12th seed, thanks to big-time performances from Colin Mullooly, Chase Olszewski, and Michael Capozzi, raced out to a big lead and never looked back as it earned a 6-3 win to topple fifth-seeded Wayne. Next up for Park is fourth-seeded West Essex-Caldwell, which earned a 3-2 overtime win to avoid an upset by 13th-seeded Tenafly-Cresskill on Monday. The teams met earlier this season, which was a 9-1 win for West Essex.
In the girls bracket, seasons came to an end for sixth-seeded Chatham-Millburn and 12th-seeded Randolph. Chatham-Millburn was upset by 11th-seeded Westfield, 6-4, while Randolph fell, 7-1, to fifth-seeded Kent Place.
SCOREBOARD
North, Public
5-Ramapo 4, 12-Roxbury 1
1-Northern Highlands 6, 16-Montville 0
10-Morristown 3, 7-Chatham 0
6-Passaic Tech 4, 11-West Morris 3 OT
9-Mendham 1, 8-Summit 0
North, Public Co-Op
10-Morris Knolls-Hills 5, 7-Clifton-Passaic Valley-Cedar Grove 4
8-KJS United 7, 9-Hoboken-Weehawken-Secaucus 1: STORY
12-Park Regional 6, 5-Wayne 3
Girls
5-Kent Place 7, 12-Randolph 1
11-Westfield 6, 6-Chatham-Millburn 4
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Morris-Sussex Hockey Report 