Mendham's quest to repeat as Group 3 champions started off with a 5-2 win over Morristown inits season opener. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

By Richard Greco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

on September 05, 2018 8:24 PM, updated September 05, 2018 8:44 PM

09/05 - 4:00 PM Boys Soccer Final

Morristown 2

Mendham 5

It certainly didn't take Mason Oebeles long to prove how valuable he is going to be on Mendham's boys soccer team.

Oebeles was born in the Netherlands and transferred to Mendham from Singapore, where he lived for 10 years. He took his junior year off to concentrate on school, came out for the varsity squad this season and had a debut to remember.

The midfielder scored twice as Mendham, No. 8 in the NJ.com Top 20, defeated Morristown, 5-2, in its season opener at Mendham High on Wednesday.

"I'm pretty grateful to be here and I'm lucky to be on the varsity team," Oebeles said. "There's a lot of great guys on this team and I couldn't do it without them."

Oebeles' first goal came in the 24th minute when he passed the ball to All-State striker Calvin Ryan, who sent a back heel pass back to Oebeles for a goal to put Mendham ahead 2-0. Oebeles' second strike come off an outside heel shot that found twine in the 58th minute to cap off the scoring as Mendham grabbed a 5-2 lead.

"From a coach's perspective it's great to see Mason come out and score twice," Mendham coach Russ Raffay said. "He's a good player and he's right in the mix. That's the good thing about this year. We have a bench that we can go to."

It didn't take Mendham long to get its offense going. Nick Eade followed up his own header attempt with a strike for a goal in the 11th minute. His first chance originated off of a corner kick from Tyler St. Jacques.

"That first goal was big for our momentum," Sullivan said. "Props to Morristown. They really played their hearts out. They scored those two goals and that really made us worried for a second, but we kept scoring and our offense kept us in the game."

Mendham pulled ahead 3-0 in the 32nd minute when Tucker Ward hopped on a rebound following a shot from Eade off the crossbar and put it home. The initial shot came off a corner kick from St. Jacques.

Mendham scored two goals off of its first four corners.

"We've worked a lot on corners," Raffay said. "Tyler has worked incredibly hard on corners this offseason. He's been hitting the weight room. We knew he'd be big for us, but we didn't know he'd be that big for us in today's game."

Camilo Loaiza got Morristown on the board in the 38th minute when he put home a feed from Conor Tierney to cut Mendham's lead to 3-1.

Calvin Ryan brought the momentum back into Mendham's corner with a rebound goal in the 52nd minute to put his squad ahead 4-1.

Morristown answered quickly with a goal from Diego Izaguiree in the 53rd minute to cut the deficit to 4-2 before Oebeles iced the game in the 58th.

Scoring five goals was extremely encouraging for a Mendham squad that won the Group 3 championship a year ago and graduated some key offensive pieces from that team.

"We graduated a lot, but I had six starters from that team come back," Raffay said. "Obviously Calvin (Ryan) is back. We replaced one of the pieces with Mason. They worked really hard this summer. Their fitness is up and on a hot day like this you can tell that their fitness is up. Getting five against a tough team like this, I'm impressed."

Richard Greco may be reached at rgreco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Richard_V_Greco. Like NJ.com HS sports on Facebook.