Boys modified soccer

The boys modified soccer team got their season started with two very impressive victories over Adirondack and Sauquoit.  

Tuesday, Sept. 20, the team played at Adirondack and came away with a 7-0 victory.  With an impressive offensive showing and control of the midfield, it was no wonder that goalie, Jake Prichard, had little to do in recording the shutout.  

Tyler Fenton had a big day against Adirondack as he led the scoring with four goals.  Henry Uzdavinis scored two goals and Tayler Schmid had one goal. Nikolai Orekhov and Luke Monroe each had two assists. Monroe has been moved up to either the stopper position or at midfield to get him more involved with the offense.  

Thursday, Sept. 22, the team hosted Sauquoit Valley and won another contest in dominating fashion, this time it was 6-0. Fenton continued his high scoring as he was, again, at the right place at the right time. Fenton scored four more goals and was given credit for a fifth that actually was kicked in by a Sauquoit defender. James Carnell had his first goal of his career to round out the scoring. Erik Lenci had two assists.  

It was the second straight shutout for Prichard who has stopped all shots at him, even though that number has not been great. Coach, Greg Clark, was happy with the way the midfield controlled the play with their speed and intelligent play. Those players responsible for this are Monroe, Schmid, Orekhov and Uzdavinis. Clark also noted that there has been some great improvement in play by Nick Branch, Carnell and Matt Andre from last years performance.  

The team is off to a great start, but, they will meet some teams that should give them better games than they have had.  They play three games this week, at Westmoreland on Monday, at home against Remsen on Wednesday and at Poland on Friday.

Boys varsity soccer

The boys varsity soccer team had a good week as they improved their league record to 3-1-1 with dominating victories over Adirondack and Sauquoit.  

The team traveled to Boonville Tuesday, Sept. 20, to take on the Adirondack team in a Division III match. In this contest, Old Forge built up a 5-0 lead and coasted to a 5-1 victory.  

Kevin Kress got the team off to a fine start as he scored both first half goals for his team. Kress also scored the first goal of the second half picking up the “hat trick” that his brother, Ethan, had the previous week against Remsen. Sam Waterbury scored the last two goals for the Eskimos. Assists went to Austin Down, Connor Rockhill, Kevin Kress and Trevor Godemann.

Old Forge had control of this game from the start as they outshot Adirondack, 23-6, had the advantage in corner kicks by a 6-0 count and goalie, Trevor Rice only had to make three saves to eight for his opponent.  

Sauquoit came to town on Thursday, Sept. 22, as an unknown quality as they moved into our division just this year. The two teams battled through a very rainy first half with Old Forge controlling most of the action. It took 25 minutes of play before Rockhill scored the first goal, unassisted. Five minutes later, Kevin Kress took a nice pass from Waterbury and made the score 2-0 at the half. Having the lead at the half is important on a rainy day as it now is an official game. If the referees had to call the game, Old Forge would be declared the victor. However, no team wants to get a victory that way and the weather cooperated during the second half.  

The second half was more of the same as Old Forge scored two more goals.  Fifteen minutes into the second half, Rockhill picked up his second unassisted goal of the game. In the last minute of the game, Sauquoit was called for a hand ball inside the penalty area and Kevin Kress made good on the ensuing penalty kick.  

Old Forge outshot Sauquoit 23-14 and had a 9-3 margin on corner kicks. Both goalies played well in stopping a wet ball as they each recorded five saves.  

Last week I mentioned that Old Forge would have to win all of their remaining league games to win the league and that they controlled their own destiny. That, unfortunately, is wrong. We do have to win all of the remaining games but we will have to have some help with one of the other teams either defeating or tying Westmoreland. The only team that has a realistic chance of that is Poland. It would take a huge upset for Sauquoit, Remsen or Adirondack to do so.  A team can only control what they do and just hope for the best.  

The team enters their most important week of the season as they play at Westmoreland on Monday, at home against Remsen on Wednesday and at Poland on Friday. Any loss will just about eliminate them from a league title. I still feel that Old Forge is the best team I have seen in the league and hopefully, that will be what we see this week.

Girls varsity soccer

The girls varsity soccer team did not have a good week as they dropped two league games to Oriskany and Poland by big scores. The week marked another set of games with some bad defensive errors and weak offense. The defense gave up 11 goals and the offense scored only one goal in each game with both scores near the end of each contest when the game had already been decided.  

Monday, Sept. 19, the girls traveled to Oriskany in hopes of getting their season turned around.  However, they met a very aggressive team that was far better than what earlier scores would have indicated. The team lost the game 4-1 with the only goal scored by Andrea Frey.  

Friday, Sept. 23, they met a very good Poland team at North Street and Poland was just too quick for our team as they took a 7-1 victory. Lexie Haehl scored the only goal for Old Forge off a pass from Maddie Phaneuf.  

Lack of good team speed seems to be a great contributor to the teams losses as Poland used their speed to get around our fullbacks to score and their speed to derail any offensive threat we were able to mount. The team showed some fine passing skills and could move the ball down the field, but, a lack of speed prevented them from moving in to properly finish the play. The stats of the game were amazingly similar, a far cry from what the final score was. Each team had 16 shots on goal, each team had six corner kicks and the Poland goalie actually had to make twice as many saves as Jessica Menges did in goal—6 saves to 3.  

Poland certainly deserved the victory but the game was played a lot closer than the final score would indicate. Poland started an eighth-grader, two ninth-graders and two tenth-graders which gives them a lot of promise for future years. As good as they are, they probably will not be able to defeat the powerful Remsen Rams who are blowing past every opponent this year. Incidentally, that eighth grader that started showed signs of becoming a great player as she scored four of her teams goals.   

Girls junior varsity soccer

The girls’ junior varsity soccer team were on the road this past Tuesday, Sept. 20, and had grand thoughts of improving on their three-game win streak. Owen D. Young was their opponent and Old Forge dominated the play on the field as evidenced by the 21-4 margin in shots, but again, soccer is a strange game. ODY scored the only goal in the game four minutes into the second half that snapped the winning streak by the Eskimos. It was a tough loss but that is soccer, forget it and move on.  

Saturday, Sept. 24, they hosted a fine Holland Patent team that probably turned out to be the best team they have faced this year.  

After a scoreless first half, Holland Patent scored a goal in the middle of the second half and, with only three seconds left to play, were awarded a penalty kick on a hand ball in the penalty area. That kick was successful to give Holland Patent a 2-0 victory.  

The score of this game was indicative of the game played as Holland Patent had the better of the play throughout the contest. Only the strong play of Old Forge’s goalie, Shelby Egnaczyk, and the outstanding play from the sweeper, Samantha Notley, kept the game close. Holland Patent outshot the Eskimos by a 25-5 margin. Egnaczyk had to make 10 saves to Holland Patent’s four. Some of Egnaczyk’s saves were very difficult with a wet ball making it even more difficult.  

The team has to find an offense to become a big winner and that may be easier said then done. Different combinations have been tried but they just cannot finish on their opportunities.  

With those two losses, the team’s record drops to 3-3 for the season.   

Cross country

The cross country teams hosted a CSC meet this past Wednesday, Sept. 21, at  Woodcraft Camp. The schools that competed in the meet were Remsen, Poland and Oriskany who are in our division and Westmoreland and Sauquoit who compete in Division II.  

The boys varsity team was led by Dane Daiker who was competing for the first time.  Knowing how to pace yourself over a three mile course takes experience and Daiker did well to place just outside the top ten. As a team, they defeated only Westmoreland and Remsen who had incomplete teams. Sauquoit was the easy winner of the meet.

In the girls varsity competition, Caitlin Bailey was the top finisher for Old Forge as she also finished just outside the top ten. As a team, like the boys, they defeated Oriskany and Westmoreland who did not have complete teams. In the overall battle for supremacy that day, Remsen nosed out Sauquoit by one point to win the competition.  The Remsen girls are a model for all athletes, boy or girl, as to what hard work can accomplish.  

No scores are kept for modified running, but, our boys and girls did very well and probably won the competition. The girls were led by Chloe Barkauskas and the boys by Tayler Schmid who won the race. Girls who finished in the top ten besides Barkauskas’s third place finish were Megan Greene in seventh and Allie Cooper in ninth. Besides the first place finish by Schmid, Henry Uzdavinis placed fifth, West Lamphear placed sixth and Zach McGough placed seventh.  

The teams took part in the 69th running of the Herrmann Cross-Country Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 24, over a 3.1 mile course at Proctor Park in Utica.  

For whatever reason, and I hope they were all valid reasons, only one boy and one girl took part in or finished the race in the varsity competition. In the boys Varsity I competition, Dane Daiker finished the race along with 163 other runners. Maddie Phaneuf, who has been nursing a muscle strain, finished in the top 25 among the 139 runners competing in that race.  

Of local interest in the team competition, the Remsen girls finished second behind Beaver River and Mike Stripp’s Holland Patent boys won the team competition.  Looks like Stripp has another solid team this year.  

In the modified competition, none of the boys competed or they did not finish in the team race. However, finally, we had a complete team in the girls competition. The top five girls for Old Forge that make up the team score were led by Megan Greene who finished 14th, Greene was followed by Barkauskas in 18th, Alllie Evans in 32nd, Holly Kalil in 43rd and Melanie Levi in 44th. The others that finished and had an effect on the team outcome were Melissa Rockhill, Allie Cooper, Olivia Phaneuf and Mara Gaffney.  

As a team, Old Forge placed eighth out of 20 schools competing in level one competition. They were fifth among the class D schools. Congratulations to these girls for a fine team effort in a very competitive race. This yearly invitational is one of the better invitationals in the state.

Boys junior varsity soccer

Last week I reported on the boys loss at Clinton by the score of 4-2, but I did not tell you who scored the goals as that fact was not known to me at the time. Dane Daiker scored both of the goals for Old Forge and Hunter Lawrence had an assist on one of Daiker’s goals.  

Now, onto this week, the team played a home game Monday, Sept. 19, against Cooperstown and had two away games on Thursday and Friday. I do not know the outcome of those two away games but I will be able to report those games in next week’s edition of the Express. I did see the Cooperstown game and watched the two teams battle through a non-scoring first half. Even though Cooperstown has a football team they are more known for their soccer. They usually have a fine soccer team but this team was not one of them. Old Forge dictated the play the whole half but, had nothing to show for it. They outshot Cooperstown 8-3 in the half and goalie, Will Johnson, never had to make a save.  

It was more of the same in the second half, as Old Forge continued to squander all of its scoring opportunities. Finally, with 16:41 left to play in the game, Cy Barkauskas decided he would get into the offense from his deep sweeper position and show the offense what to do. He did just that as he placed a long 30 yard shot over the head of the goalie to give Old Forge that first goal. Once the offense saw how to do it, it took only six more minutes before Daiker scored the second goal. That seemed to be a very safe lead but Cooperstown scored a goal with a little over three minutes to play on a bad misplay at the defensive end and suddenly it became a game again. Old Forge took the game back again and won the game 2-1.  

This was a game that Old Forge should have won easily as they completely dominated the play throughout the contest. They outshot Cooperstown 23-7, Johnson only had to make three saves in the goal and the team had a 5-0 advantage in corner kicks.  So the problem is finishing the play. The entire team needs to play with more intensity and they will then surprise themselves on how good they can be.  

When you dominate a game like Old Forge did, certainly all members of the team help in that respect. Two members of the team seemed to stand out during this game. I felt that Barkauskas and Lawrence played excellent games from start to finish. No lack of intensity was shown be either of these two boys.