Manchester Soccer Team Blanks Rival Valley
August 31, 2016 at 6:11 p.m.
Manchester Soccer Team Blanks Rival Valley
By Mark [email protected]
But that factor didn’t matter to either coach after the game was called in the 48th minute.
Manchester controlled play for almost the entire first half, but Valley was packing all 11 players deep in its territory to keep the Squires out of the net for the first 15 minutes. The Vikings’ Ivan Santiago got a yellow card at the 15-minute mark, and the Squires moved quickly through the Valley defense, with sophomore Brandon Wagoner scoring a minute later off a pass from freshman Harley Kruschwitz.
The Squires’ second goal came 41 seconds later. Taking the ball over the top of the Valley defense, junior Fermin Guerrero scored his first career varsity goal off another assist from Kruschwitz.
The hosts continued to give Valley junior goalkeeper Fabian Mar a workout. At the 26-minute mark, Kruschwitz scored off a pass from Jake Schannep. Seven minutes later Schannep helped Caleb Stout score his first career high school goal as the rain began.
Squires head coach Dave McKee said while his squad is younger, with 80 percent of the 2015 squad’s scoring lost to graduation, his players made the adjustment to attack quickly, going through and over the Valley defenses, on their own. He also credited the Vikings for not letting the score get out of hand.
“I’ll take a goal any way we can get it, and we’re trying to rebuild some scoring,” he said. “They adjusted for themselves. This was supposed to be our sixth game, and it was only our third. But our younger guys are coming along.
“Valley, for a first-year varsity team, they’re not bad. They have the best goalie I’ve seen in quite a few years. My hat’s off to that keeper. They’re on the right track.”
But Valley head coach Mark Gordon said he and his team will not use the program’s youth as an excuse for lackluster performance.
“One of my seniors came to me and said ‘it’s almost like we didn’t come to play,’” he said. “And that’s too bad because we have some talent back there. We have some players who have played two or three years. But we also have some younger kids who’ve never played soccer before. They’re good athletes, but you can’t call them soccer players until they’ve played three or four years.
“One or two to nothing at half, that would have been fine, but four, I was a little bit disappointed in that.”
The Vikings redeemed themselves a bit in the eight minutes played in the second half.
“At halftime (only three minutes, in an effort to get as much of the match in as possible) I told them it was one of the worst halves I’ve seen in 33 years of coaching. Not to be mean, but there was just nothing positive happening.
“In the second half, I told them ‘let’s get a goal. I don’t care what the score is, we need to get a goal.’ I think had we played the whole second half, I think we’d have scored.”
Manchester will host Columbia City at 5 p.m. Thursday. Valley will play in the Plymouth Tournament on Saturday.
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But that factor didn’t matter to either coach after the game was called in the 48th minute.
Manchester controlled play for almost the entire first half, but Valley was packing all 11 players deep in its territory to keep the Squires out of the net for the first 15 minutes. The Vikings’ Ivan Santiago got a yellow card at the 15-minute mark, and the Squires moved quickly through the Valley defense, with sophomore Brandon Wagoner scoring a minute later off a pass from freshman Harley Kruschwitz.
The Squires’ second goal came 41 seconds later. Taking the ball over the top of the Valley defense, junior Fermin Guerrero scored his first career varsity goal off another assist from Kruschwitz.
The hosts continued to give Valley junior goalkeeper Fabian Mar a workout. At the 26-minute mark, Kruschwitz scored off a pass from Jake Schannep. Seven minutes later Schannep helped Caleb Stout score his first career high school goal as the rain began.
Squires head coach Dave McKee said while his squad is younger, with 80 percent of the 2015 squad’s scoring lost to graduation, his players made the adjustment to attack quickly, going through and over the Valley defenses, on their own. He also credited the Vikings for not letting the score get out of hand.
“I’ll take a goal any way we can get it, and we’re trying to rebuild some scoring,” he said. “They adjusted for themselves. This was supposed to be our sixth game, and it was only our third. But our younger guys are coming along.
“Valley, for a first-year varsity team, they’re not bad. They have the best goalie I’ve seen in quite a few years. My hat’s off to that keeper. They’re on the right track.”
But Valley head coach Mark Gordon said he and his team will not use the program’s youth as an excuse for lackluster performance.
“One of my seniors came to me and said ‘it’s almost like we didn’t come to play,’” he said. “And that’s too bad because we have some talent back there. We have some players who have played two or three years. But we also have some younger kids who’ve never played soccer before. They’re good athletes, but you can’t call them soccer players until they’ve played three or four years.
“One or two to nothing at half, that would have been fine, but four, I was a little bit disappointed in that.”
The Vikings redeemed themselves a bit in the eight minutes played in the second half.
“At halftime (only three minutes, in an effort to get as much of the match in as possible) I told them it was one of the worst halves I’ve seen in 33 years of coaching. Not to be mean, but there was just nothing positive happening.
“In the second half, I told them ‘let’s get a goal. I don’t care what the score is, we need to get a goal.’ I think had we played the whole second half, I think we’d have scored.”
Manchester will host Columbia City at 5 p.m. Thursday. Valley will play in the Plymouth Tournament on Saturday.
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