Mamaroneck Boys Soccer Ready for Big Game Today

It's been a while since Mamaroneck's boys soccer team played its last game, which was a 4-1 victory at Rye Country Day on Sept. 25. As one could imagine, the Tigers are anxious to play against another team.

Mamaroneck will get that chance when it hosts White Plains today at 4:30 p.m.

Tigers coach Rich Becker talked about how tough it is to have such a long layoff between games in a sport where that's not the norm.

"Especially with the rain, it's a nightmare," Becker said. "It's been backing up games. We had one rained out against Harrison. Mount Vernon forfeited to us, which I never heard of, a Yorktown match last week got put to this week so we are going to be playing four games in five days. Then we turn back around the next week and play three games in four days."

After the White Plains game, Mamaroneck will also host Scarsdale and Roosevelt on Thursday, Oct. 7, and Friday, Oct. 8, with both games at 4:30 p.m. The Tigers will then travel to Yorktown for a 4 p.m. start on Saturday, Oct. 9.

When a team has as much time off as Mamaroneck has, conditioning is a concern.

"Last week we just did basic training to keep their match fitness up; that's tough because you are worried about conditioning," Becker said. "The good thing is that it gets everyone healthy. We had five different players injured and we are going to have all five back tomorrow which is good with all the games we have coming up."

One thing that makes Becker feel good about going into this stretch of games is the talented quartet of offensive players that the Tigers can boast of. They are Fabian Chapparo, Shaquille Jackson-Lee, Jimmy Calderone, and Hrvoje Glavan.

"They play together as a team," Becker said. "They have played for a while together. They are starting to jell together and understand what each other is doing on and off the ball. That helps our attack. We were starting to get into a flow, well, we were until last week, of course."

On the defensive side of the ball, the two key players for the Tigers have been center-backs Eric Sadler and Mike de Oliveira. These two have provided solid play for the Tigers, and their efforts will be even more necessary with such a condensed schedule the next couple of weeks.

On the outside, defensively the Tigers are also solid, according to Becker. Providing solid play there are Johnny Perez and Jeremy Gittelman.

Backing up the defense is goalie Maro Munguia, who is returning after an injury.