The Indians fell to Ridgewood 4-0 at home on Saturday morning to bring their record to 7-3. It was a defensive battle in the first half, however the Maroons pulled away shortly after halftime.

Senior goalie AJ Puller enjoyed a very successful first half, holding Ridgewood scoreless and making multiple saves. However, he exited the game late in the half after suffering a head injury in a collision with a Ridgewood player while cutting off a scoring opportunity for the Maroons.

AJ Puller injured after seemingly getting kneed in the head following a save in which he ran outside the goalie box and collided with a Ridgewood player. Now walking off the field under his own power.#pvbsoc

— Smoke Signal Sports (@pvsportscenter) September 28, 2019

After going into halftime with the game scoreless, Ridgewood got on the board quickly, scoring its first goal under five minutes into the half. The Maroons would tack on two more goals in under ten minutes, putting Valley at a 3-0 deficit with around 30 minutes to play.

“The boys did a nice job in the first half,” coach Luciano Cofrancesco said. “They were working together defensively [until] the second half started up and I think Ridgewood made a couple positional changes and we just didn’t address it properly.”

While Ridgewood’s offense was able to get things going in the latter half, the same cannot be said for Valley’s. Ridgewood held the Indians scoreless throughout the entire game en route to its victory.

The Maroons put the icing on the cake with their fourth score of the second half with 24 minutes to go, which would be the final goal of the game.

The Indians (7-3) will host River Dell on Wednesday in a league game as they look to bounce back from the loss.

“We try to learn from these kind of games,” Cofrancesco said. “We always say ‘keep our head up’, and hopefully next time, if we see [Ridgewood] again, we’ll be better suited to play. [But] we just focus on the next one. Our next game is home, a league game, and that’s our number one goal.”