With an overwhelming majority of the SDSSAA (Sudbury District Secondary Schools Athletic Association) Senior Boys Premier soccer matches being decided this spring by two goals or less, there is more scrutiny than ever on those gallant souls who man the last line of defense.
And as we took in a handful of games this week at the James Jerome Sports Complex, it was clear that the keepers within the Sudbury high-school ranks come in all shapes and sizes, blessed with an equally wide array of interesting backgrounds as they tackle this challenging role.
In need of a win in order to ensure themselves a playoff berth in Division B of the Premier ranks, the Lasalle Lancers dug themselves an early hole against the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères on Tuesday, down 2-1 at half-time as Kouame Nango managed to bookend a counter-strike from Dash Kamal, giving ESMC the lead.
In the second half, however, it was different story as Kamal netted his second of the game, allowing Lasalle to draw even with Axel Moncada-Toledo striking the game-winning tally minutes later.
Trailing only the St Benedict Bears (4-0-0) at the moment thanks to their record of 2-2-0, the Lancers needed to find their form in their last regular season game, before it was too late.
“We weren’t communicating, we weren’t passing the ball well, we weren’t shooting the ball and taking our chances,” noted goalie Juan Calderon, the native of Columbia who came to Canada some three years ago witnessing the full view of the match directly in his line of sight.
Undersized by typical soccer goalkeeper standards, Calderon knows that he has to compensate via a pin-point commitment to proper positioning – though on this particular day, it wasn’t his lack of height that was causing him the biggest grief.
“I don’t like that wind; playing against that is tough,” said Calderon. “If I shoot high, the ball comes right back to me. When they are shooting the ball, it’s coming really fast at me, so it’s harder to identify when is the time to jump.”
Eighteen year-old Zhengda Lu need not worry quite as much about his vertical jump, standing comfortably north of 6’0” as he backstopped the Lockerby Vikings to a surprise 1-1 tie with the Lo-Ellen Park Knights.
The position was a natural one for the native of China, as coaches in both Beijing and Ontario identified his key attributes with ease. “When I first started playing soccer in grassroots, I was the tallest guy on the team and we needed a goalie,” recalled Lu. “The coach thought I had great reflexes, so now I am a keeper.”
A first half blast from Ugo Nwosu (on a lovely through ball from Harry Yeamans) was the only shot to elude Lu, his team pulling even later in the second half as Ryder Coe followed up his own shot off the post, depositing the rebound in a vacant cage.
“I think the main thing is that we wanted it more than them,” said Lu, appreciating the effort his teammates were providing. “The number one thing was the fight that we showed today.”
If Lo-Ellen was not necessarily in possession of their “A” game early in the week, it was certainly a more inspired effort on Thursday that knocked the Collège Notre-Dame Alouettes from the ranks of the unbeaten, ensuring second place in Pool “A” for the Knights.Goals from Massimo Toffoli and Miguel Acuna-Munita and a shutout effort from Jayden Ceming propelled the Purple & Black to a 2-0 win over CND, the latter entering the contest with an unblemished mark of 3-0-0.
“We knew this was a must-win game,” said Lo-Ellen head coach Paul Hatzis, his team coming off a gold medal performance at the 31st Annual Nipissing Invitational in North Bay last weekend. “We worked the ball well, trusted the system and just moved forward with what we learned from the tournament – which was just to play together.”
A very familiar face along the sidelines at the time of the high-school soccer season, Hatzis understands fully the need to shorten games this spring to 25 minute halves, just to be able to squeeze in a season and still produce entries for NOSSA and OFSAA, even if it tends to balance the scales of talent.
“It’s a much faster game and anything can happen, especially if it takes a team time to get into the flow of the game,” noted Hatzis. “Credit to the schools who tied us. It made sense to play tight defense against us, knowing it was a shorter time frame game.”
The junior lads representing Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School also earned gold in North Bay, trimming the St Joseph Scollard Hall Bears 2-1 in the final.
Games this past week set the stage for a slate of eight quarter-final encounters this coming Tuesday (May 19th) at James Jerome, as follows:
Senior Boys - Premier Division9:00 a.m. - Lasalle Lancers (B2) vs Lockerby Vikings (A3)
10:30 a.m. - Lo-Ellen Park Knights (A2) vs Macdonald-Cartier Panthères (B3)
12:00 p.m. - Notre-Dame Alouettes (A1) vs Confederation Chargers (B4)
1:30 p.m. - St Benedict Bears (B1) vs Horizon Aigles (A4)
Senior Girls - Premier Division
6:00 p.m. - Horizon Aigles (A2) vs Macdonald-Cartier Panthères (B3)
7:30 p.m. - Notre-Dame Alouettes (B2) vs Bishop Carter Gators (A3)
Junior Boys Division
3:00 p.m. - St Benedict Bears (A2) vs Lasalle Lancers (B3)
4:30 p.m. - Lockerby Vikings (B2) vs Bishop Carter Gators (A3)
