Connor Hayes is best known as the Robbinsville High boys’ basketball coach, but the following statement came from Connor Hayes, the Pond Road Middle School boys’ soccer coach:
“This is a special group of players.If they stick together and stick with soccer, they can accomplish some great things at the next level.”
Those words appeared in the December 2019 edition of the Robbinsville Advance.
And wow, were they prophetic.
The group Hayes was discussing went undefeated that fall and formed the Ravens varsity nucleus each of the past two years. All they did was go a combined 36-10-2, win consecutive NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III titles and become the first Mercer County team since Notre Dame in 1982-84 to reach back-to-back state finals. They were the first public school team to do it since Lawrence in 1975-78.
That’s what is known as “accomplishing some great things at the next level.”
Granted, RHS did not repeat its state championship run of 2022 but in some ways 2023 was even more impressive as every game was a war. Everyone wanted to beat the champs.
“We had a target on our back through the whole season,” senior midfielder Kanhav Bhatnagar said.
That became obvious on Sep. 26. After outscoring its first six Colonial Valley Conference foes 35-3, the Ravens suffered a 3-1 loss to Lawrence.
“It looked like they watched hours of film on us,” Bhatnagar said. “Seeing them celebrate made us understand we’re the team to beat and we have to understand that everyone is going to give us their 110 percent.
“That Lawrence game was definitely the turning point. We were beating teams nine-nothing, six-nothing. Lawrence was the first real challenge we had and it was like a wake-up call. It was ‘OK, we’re gonna have a target on our back, we need to understand that and that we’re not going to be killing teams every game.’”
The Ravens went 12-4-1 from that point; taking everyone’s best shot and usually surviving. Every loss was to a quality team, including Pennington in the Mercer County Tournament semifinals and Garfield in the Group III state finals.
“I’m just so happy with the season,” said coach Jeff Fisher, who has stamped himself as one of the top coaches in Mercer and beyond. “We were obviously bringing a lot of good guys back, so it adds to the expectations. We also lost some really key players from that state champion team especially defensively. It was gonna take some time for those guys to gel.
“It’s hard when everybody’s trying to take you down. These kids were able to rise up, win our division, get the one seed in the (CJ III) tournament, win the section and have a great semifinal win to get back to the finals. They backed up last year’s season by what they did this year. I was just so proud they were able to deal with that kind of adversity to get back there.”
Indeed, the Ravens confirmed that last year was not some fluke run. In some ways, getting to a state final is as impressive as winning it. Anything can happen in one game; but it takes sustained excellence to get through the five-game grind of state matches to get there.
“We still won a section title,” Bhatnagar noted. “Our goal, obviously, was to win another state championship. But what made our season successful was working together and completing something. I know we didn’t get the final result we wanted, but getting to the state final is a reward. After beating Clearview (in the semis) we were more than excited to try it again.
“Even though we didn’t win, we played like we wanted to this year. We played the type of pace we wanted. We had a crazy winning record, and I think we had a good run.”
And while Hayes and Fisher saw potential for the run four years ago; the players themselves dreamed about it way before that.
“I’ve been with these kids since Kindergarten, playing with them as long as I can remember,” Bhatnagar said. “Alex and Adrian (Ivanov) were in my kindergarten class, and we talked about high school soccer. I don’t think we exactly talked about a state title, but we talked about doing something major in high school. It’s amazing, now we are here and we did what we wanted to do.”
It all started in the back, where Robbinsville had major vacancies to restock.
Junior Brody Kaplan helped fill the void his first year in goal for varsity, authoring or co-authoring (with senior Ayush Singh) 10 shutouts while allowing less than one goal per game. His shining moment came in the CJ III title game, when he made diving saves on Steinert’s last two penalty kicks to secure a 3-2 shootout victory.
“It’s kind of what I thought he’d be able to do,” Fisher said. “When I shoot on goalies in practice I typically do OK. This was the first time I was really struggling to put the ball in the net. He’s such a good shot stopper, he’s tough to score on. He makes saves and you’re just like ‘Wow!’ He’s not gonna be the biggest, most physical goalie out there but he makes up for it with his swagger and confidence and wanting to make that big save in that moment.”
Playing in front of Kaplan were seniors Ethan Brown and Jason “Thunderfoot” Testa, junior Nick Grippa and sophomores Max Goldberg and Nico Mathews. Goldberg moved from midfield to the back before suffering a season-ending injury. Mathews took his spot “and did an excellent job; that can only help us in the future.”
The praise didn’t stop there.
“Jason Testa has really really grown,” Fisher said of the guy whose powerful kicks put his team on instant offense from the back. “He wasn’t a natural defender but the last couple years he went back there and became a really strong center-back who was phenomenal this year as a leader in the back.
“Ethan Brown was fantastic on the left, he showed a lot of physicality this year and he whipped some really dangerous balls into the box (for six assists). Nick Grippo’s just a firecracker, he’s so tough. He would literally run through the wall for his team if he needed to; just putting his body on the line every single tackle.”
The coach also lauded senior Daniel Silva, who lost his starting job but came off the bench to provide valuable minutes.
“He had the team-first mentality,” Fisher said. “He came in and changed a few games for us. He gives us a different type of energy and scored some great goals for us.”
The talented, all-senior midfield included the Ivanov brothers, Giacomo Bottoni, Stefano Muscara and Bhatnagar. Adrian Ivanaov was second on the team in scoring with 12 goals and five assists, while Alex had five goals and 10 assists.
“Alex was a link to our defense and also does a little more on the offensive side, scoring goals, passing out assists,” Fisher said. “Adrian is versatile, we can play him up top, play him left or right. He’s got a laser left foot, and is really tough out wide.”
Muscara had nine goals and a team-high 11 assists, Bottoni tallied two and three and Bhatnagar added one and four.
“Khanav wasn’t the guy stat-wise,” Fisher said. “He’s the guy that gets the ball from our backs to our offense. He just does so much for our team to succeed – the amount of ground he covers and breaking up the other teams counter attacks, his one on one ability in the midfield.
“You can say the same things about Giac. He’s selfless. I ask him to sit deep as another defender in the midfield a lot of times. He works his tail off and wins so many balls for us. I thought he was playing excellently, especially in the state tournament run.”
As for Muscara, the coach said. “He’s just really tough to handle, he’s got a full bag of tricks. He’s strong and he’s fast and just causes havoc for teams in the back. When our offense is really jelling, everyone is coming at you in different waves.”
The wave that crashed down hardest on opposing defenses was forward Bora Turker, who raised the bar of what a Raven highlight-reel player should look like.
Forget the fact he led the CVC with 35 goals to go with nine assists, or that he set the school single-season and career record (68) in goals; or that he scored two incredible goals in the state semifinal win over Clearview; or all three goals in a regular-season win over eventual Group IV champ Princeton.
Numbers aside, it was just eye-popping to watch him get the ball on his foot and do things reminiscent of some of Mercer County’s all-time superstars. The Lehigh-bound senior dribbled through double teams, around one-v-one opposition or pulled away from a poor back as he attacked the goal with lightning speed.
Even his teammates would stop and stare.
“Every game, he pulls magic out of nothing,” Bhatnagar said. “It’s a miracle. Sometimes I’ll play him a ball and think ‘Oh that’s not that great of a ball,’ and he’ll just pull a goal out of nowhere. I can’t even fathom it sometimes.”
Neither can Fisher, who has seen greatness in his time but can’t stop being amazed by his guy.
“I think I’m in awe a little bit when it happens,” he said of the spectacular goals. “But you see it all the time in practice. That’s why we wanted to find his gaps in their defense for him to get the ball and kind of run with it when he does. One of his many strengths is having the ball at his feet and running downhill at the defense like that.. He’s so shifty and tough with his hesitation on the ball. Against Clearview he was slicing through some of the top defenders in South Jersey.”
The coach also lauded Turker’s leadership skills and some of the other things he did to help the team besides scoring. He also praised Bora’s academic skills.
“You could,” Fisher said, “go on and talk forever about his accomplishments and his character.”
Turker will be a tough man to replace, along with the six other graduating starters. Fisher has called Bora a “program changer” and the trick now is to make sure the program doesn’t change again and hit a downward slope.
Fisher hopes those days are over and the Ravens can consistently compete for championships.
“Obviously you’re not gonna make the state final every year,” he said. “That isn’t the only level of success. You want to have a team where people say ‘You gotta watch Robbinsville, they’re gonna put themselves in a position to win the division and win county and state titles because they’re gonna be a good team year in and year out.’
“We’ll have the target on our back again next year because we’re two-time state finalists, so it doesn’t get easier. But we have a good core group of defenders coming back. We have a good group of 8th-graders rising up to us and that’s gonna help. I’m hoping to keep the standard high and the expectations high.”
If those 8th-graders produce anything near what the Pond Road Class of 2020 did, it will be interesting.
Members of the Ravens boys’ soccer team and its supporters pose for a photo.,
