The North Arlington boys’ soccer team will play Mahwah this week in the
opening round of the Bergen County Tournament. Kneeling, from l., are Joel
Silva, Ulises Jaramillo and Diego Correa. Standing, from l., are Eric Pace, Ali
Timur, Moises Polanco and head coach Jesse Dembowski.
Jesse Dembowski has been the head boys’ soccer coach at North Arlington High School for seven years now. He’s been able to lead the Vikings to some impressive heights, including last season, when the Vikings won 15 games.
But this was supposed to be a trying year, a rebuilding year for the Vikings, especially after losing so many key players to graduation.
“We’re very young and have a lot of new players coming up the ranks,” Dembowski said. “We graduated 14 seniors last year. That’s a lot for a Group I school. A ton of them played a ton of minutes for us. We have a lot of new kids who were JV (junior varsity) players last year. It took a while to find out who plays where the best.”
Well, Dembowski must be doing something right, because the Vikings have won six of eight matches thus far this season and have qualified for the Bergen County Tournament as the No. 20 seed.
The Vikings will travel to Mahwah this week and face the Thunderbirds, with the winner set to face perennial state power Ramapo.
“We’ve been doing a lot of mixing and matching to see what works,” Dembowski said.
“Whoever is playing the best that day will get the shot. There are no guarantees. It’s a lot more work than I’ve done in the past, figuring who’s playing where. I expected some guys to come and be top players for us right away. Our defense has been playing very well.”
Keying that defensive effort has been junior goalkeeper Ali Timur, who has been absolutely rock solid in goal.
“He was a JV player last year,” Dembowski said. “But he’s been outstanding.”
Senior Moises Polanco is a center back, keying the back line.
“He was a starter for us last year,” Dembowski said of Polanco.
Other gems in the back line include Joel Silva, the baseball standout. He played JV soccer last fall and now has a year of experience under his belt.
“We’re counting on him a lot,” Dembowski said of Silva. “He’s a big kid and he’s physical. He’s the first line of defense.”
The other defenders are C.J. Burbach and Ulises Taramillo, both of whom played big roles last season.
Junior Cristiano Neves has been a godsend for the Vikings, picking up where he left off a year when he found the nets of the goal 27 times.
Well, Neves has done the same thing this season – and then some – for the Vikings this season, scoring 12 goals, including a sizzling fourgoal performance against Weehawken last week.
“I expect Cristiano to score a lot of goals,” Dembowski said. “He’s in twice the shape that he was last year. I expect him to be marked a lot more.”
Senior Ryan Mullins is also a solid midfielder, up from the junior varsity where he played last year. Mullins has contributed four assists thus far with one goal.
Hudson Ribiero has been a pleasant surprise. The junior has contributed six goals and three assists thus far.
Marvin Caballero is a senior who has made a complete recovery from a torn knee ligament.
“It was a big addition getting him back,” Dembowski said.
The forwards are junior Adam Boudisa and sophomore Brandon Montesinos, who transferred to North Arlington from Kearny last year, but did so too late to compete for North Arlington.
Dylan Jurado and Austin Gilchrist have come off the bench to be solid goal scorers for the Vikings.
“We have a lot of good players who are ready to make their marks,” Dembowski said.
Sure looks like they are. Right now, the Vikings are holding steady at 6-2, doing much better than anyone could have anticipated.
So much so that the Vikings are headed to the Bergen County Tournament this week, which is a solid sign of how Dembowski feels about the development of his youngsters. The good thing is that most of the current Vikings return next season, so everything that happens to this team this season is just pure gravy.
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Jim Hague | Observer Sports Writer
Sports Writer Jim Hague was with The Observer for 20+ years — and his name is one of the most recognizable in all of sports journalism. The St. Peter’s Prep and Marquette alum kicked off his journalism career post Marquette at the Daily Record, where he remained until 1985. Following shorts stints at two other newspapers, in September 1986, he joined the now-closed Hudson Dispatch, where he remained until 1991, when its doors were finally shut.
It was during his tenure at The Dispatch that Hague’s name and reputation as one of country’s hardest-working sports reporters grew. He won several New Jersey Press Association and North Jersey Press Club Awards in that timeframe.
In 1991, he became a columnist for The Hudson Reporter chain of newspapers — and he remains with them to this day.
In addition to his work at The Observer and The Hudson Reporter, Hague is also an Associated Press stringer, where he covers Seton Hall University men’s basketball, New York Red Bulls soccer and occasionally, New Jersey Devils hockey.
He’s also doing work at The Morristown Daily Record, the very newspaper where his journalism career began.
During his career, he also worked for Dorf Feature Services, which provided material for the Star-Ledger. While there, he covered the New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets.
Hague is also known for his announcing work — and he’s done PA work for Rutgers Newark and NJIT.
Hague is the author of the book “Braddock: The Rise of the Cinderella Man.”