Boys Soccer: Hornets Beat Sailors on Single Goal

Despite a 1-0 win against visiting Hendrick Hudson (5-2), Lakeland boys soccer coach Tim Hourahan said the team wasn't at its best offensively. 

"It was a little frustrating," he said. "I mean it’s hard to be frustrated after a win but by no means was this the best day we had offensively. This is our fourth game and it’s our third shutout so we only have given up only one goal in four games.”

In a second-half goal by Landy Manolo Lopez, with the assist coming from Andrew Mitgang, Lakeland (4-0) dominated play against Hendrick Hudson and defeated the Sailors 1-0 Wednesday.

While proud of his team’s defensive effort, Hourahan said his team needs to improve offensively. He said the team had possession of the ball for between 80 to 90 percent of the game, but only scored once.

"If we don’t score at a higher rate, we aren’t going to be successful and what success means to us is playing in the championship game," Hourahan said. "They had about 12 saves (actually 17) and we had about 40 shots, so that means we are not hitting the target."

Defensively, the Sailors had another outstanding effort, backed in goal by 13 saves from Abe Hannigan, who moved to the striker position later in the game with Rob Carey making the final four saves for the Sailors.

"Abe is arguably our best offensive player as well," Hendrick Hudson coach Derek Kisslinger said. "When we are down, we are going to move him up. It’s a dilemma we have. We keep him in goal against a better team and if we get down, we are going to put him on the field because he plays good in the field."

Kisslinger said he was proud of his team’s effort against the Hornets and the day before in a 3-0 loss at Yorktown.

"We played great," he said. "We showed that we could compete with anybody. The last two games we showed that we could compete with two of the better teams in the league."

Kisslinger said he thought his squad was especially close to coming away with a huge victory against the Hornets.

"A couple of breaks here or there, maybe we steal one," Kisslinger said. "I told the guys that we can’t be disappointed with the effort. We battled. We are battling, the effort is there, we just have to play a crisp 80 minutes."

After being shut out in the first half, the Hornets finally scored in the second half on what turned out to be the only goal of the game on Lopez’ score.

"It was like, when is it going to come," Hourahan said. "We started subbing defenders out and putting offensive minded players as defenders because really the ball was never past midfield. We just had middies and forwards, playing them as outside backs. The kid who scored a goal was a forward, we put him at right back and he scored a goal."

A big reason why that would be the only goal Lakeland scored was because of Sailor defenseman Hank Messinger's play.

"We were missing our starting sweeper (Jacob Ziemba) today and Messinger, he played a great game at sweeper," Kisslinger said. "He covered a lot of ground. He cleaned up a lot of their scoring chances from sideline to sideline."

Lakeland will play at Yorktown next at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23. The two teams played at Lakeland High School last season, with the Hornets winning 1-0.

"It’s your crosstown rival, they are right down the street, it’s two miles away," Hourahan said. "It’s their homecoming, there is going to be a lot of people there, it’s going to be a great. We are looking forward to it, hopefully the rain stays away."

Hourahan explained how his defense has been able to excel early this season.

"We got a lot of guys back," Hourahan said. "Of course we got an all-section keeper, Steven Reiche, in the net and we got the cadet Monte, Chris Monteferante, at center-back. One of our new guys, Jon Pinto, a sophomore, is probably our best one on one defender. He has really stepped in and helped us back there."

The Sailors will also return to play at 4:30 p.m. on Friday at Arlington.

"We have to play a full 80 minutes of soccer, crisp, mistake free soccer and we have to continue to battle on the balls in the air and the 50-50 balls," Kisslinger said.