Boys Soccer: Huskers Fall in Opener

The Yorktown Huskers boys soccer team opened their 2010 season after working hard in the days leading up to it. The first game was held on September 8 against Ketcham, who came away with a 3-1 triumph.

"It felt good to be out there and play in a game," Yorktown's Erik Migliore said.

Ketcham got off to an early lead when Esteban Montoya scored an unassisted goal with 36:23 remaining in the first half after Yorktown's Luis Lizarzaburu had made a couple of outstanding saves.

"The first five minutes they had some unbelievable shots which Luis made some great saves on, but our defense seems to be stuck in mud at that particular time," Yorktown coach Ed Polchinski said. "There was no follow-up and that's how they got their first goal."

He said after the first goal his team played well, settled down and was controlling the game to some extent. Yorktown almost tied the game when one of their shots hit the crossbar. Shortly thereafter, Ketcham's Matt Garcia scored an unassisted goal with 5:16 remaining, which put Ketcham up 2-0 at halftime.

"That was a real big deflation for us, at least before we got into halftime," Polchinski said. "We had our opportunities. We had that one opportunity that hit the crossbar. We failed to follow up on the shot that we could have had a rebound in. Then they countered attack and that goal hurt us."

Migliore got the Huskers on the board in the second half with 34:36 to go in the game when Migliore scored on an unassisted goal to cut Ketcham's lead to one, 2-1.

"I got a pass down the line and I saw an opening, so I cut back and just went for it," Migliore said.

That score was defining of how Yorktown played for most of the second half.

"We needed to get hyped up," Migliore said. "We needed to make runs and that's pretty much what happened."

Ketcham got a big insurance goal when Alex Tolman found the bottom right corner of the net with 7:50 left in the contest to go up 3-1, which sealed the game for the visitors.

"I told them we have to come and get a goal 10 minutes into the half and we did," Polchinski said. "They rose to the level that I asked them too. They came out, played very, very hard. We controlled the second half quite a bit for the most part of it, until the last five minutes. I don't know what it was, fatigue in the back, might have been a little bit of my fault for not making a switch but I stayed with my starters back there."

Polchinski said he thinks the experience of playing a solid Ketcham squad will bode well when his team hosts its own tournament beginning with a game against North Salem, on September 11 at 6 p.m. Mahopac will play Somers in the first game the same day at 2 p.m.

The consolation and championship games are on Tuesday, Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.