PARSIPPANY — Parsippany High School’s run in the Morris County Tournament came to a painful end Tuesday afternoon as Roxbury scored in the final minute to hand the Redhawks a 3-2 second-round loss.
Parsippany entered the tournament as the No. 8 seed and opened county play with a dominant 5-0 victory over No. 25 Kinnelon. Roxbury, seeded ninth, earned its place in the second round after defeating Morris Catholic 7-0.
Tuesday’s matchup proved far tighter.
Captain Christian Castaño accounted for both Parsippany goals and was named Man of the Match after delivering one of his biggest performances of the season.
Sairam “Sai” Balaji was directly involved in both scoring opportunities. Sai assisted Christian on one goal and later drew a penalty, which Christian converted for his second goal of the match.
With the score tied 2-2 late, Parsippany appeared to have done enough to push the game beyond regulation. Instead, Roxbury found the decisive goal in the final minute, turning an evenly contested county tournament game into a devastating finish for the Redhawks.
The loss ends Parsippany’s Morris County Tournament run in the second round. The Redhawks had entered Tuesday with an 8-1 record after a strong opening stretch to the season.
Despite the result, Christian’s two-goal performance and Sai’s continued ability to create chances gave Parsippany positives to carry forward. One late goal ended the county tournament run, but it does not erase the strong start the Redhawks have put together this fall.
Parsippany will now have to put the loss behind it quickly. The Redhawks return to regular-season action against Dover on Friday, October 9, at 3:30 p.m.
While this is a heartbreaking loss, there is plenty of soccer left to play
Author’s Note: Special thanks to Ajay Rathinam and Christian Castaño for providing scoring details and additional information from the game. Special thanks to Nishchay Kochhar for providing photography from the match. More of his work can be found on Instagram at @nsk_flicks.
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