Garfield’s Nikolce Iloski’s practice habits have helped him lead the team in goals.
DON SMITH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Garfield’s Nikolce Iloski’s practice habits have helped him lead the team in goals.
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By GREGORY SCHUTTA
STAFF WRITER – The Record

Garfield soccer coach Mark Pieklo still can’t believe the telephone call he got from the school police officer concerning Nikolce Iloski. Even two years later.

“I’m thinking, what did he do?” Pieklo said recently. “I couldn’t imagine Nikolce doing anything.”

Iloski is the soccer equivalent of a gym rat — which didn’t sit well with some residents who saw him shoveling off one of the town’s turf soccer fields following a six-inch snowstorm two years ago.

“I just wanted to practice a little,” he said with a laugh. “They thought I was trying to damage the field.”

Iloski, who came to the U.S. from Macedonia with his family when he was about 10 years old, hasn’t done that since.

But it’s not unusual to find the senior pulling his teammates together for an impromptu pickup game or setting up some cones for solo dribbling drills on any clear patch of ground he can find in town

– See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/sports/high-school-sports/boys-soccer/iloski-s-effort-pays-off-1.1117193#sthash.l0us8sfe.dpuf