Boys junior varsity soccer

The boys’ junior varsity soccer team has had a run of tough luck these past 10 days and it has not been just with their losses.

Thursday, Sept. 22, the team played at Owen D. Young and were handed a 6-1 defeat to a much more physical team. With no varsity team this year, ODY had a number of upperclassmen playing on the jayvee team and it certainly helped with their dominance. Old Forge’s only goal was scored by Cy Barkauskas with an assist going to Tyler McGough.  

They had to make another trip the next day to play Poland.  Poland just managed to get by the Eskimos with a 2-1 victory.  John Gaffney had the goal for Old Forge on an assist from Dane Daiker.  

Back home on Monday, Sept. 26, the team again battled hard against that same Poland team before a second half goal by Poland midway through the half, gave Poland a hard earned 1-0 victory. Poland did have the advantage in the play and their victory was well earned.  

Continuing their tough luck, the team traveled all the way to Hamilton on Tuesday, Sept. 27, only to be sent home without playing the game due to a thunder and lightning storm. Now, they will have to make the trip again later in the season. Finally, to cap off the week, they hosted Herkimer on Thursday, Sept. 29. Herkimer arrived at North Street a bit late and as soon as they got there, a clap of thunder greeted them followed by hard rain and more thunder. Again, no game and that will be made up later in the season.

Girls junior varsity soccer

The girls junior varsity soccer team played a game at Adirondack last Wednesday, Sept. 28.  In their earlier encounter, Old Forge upset Adirondack 2-1 even though Adirondack had the better of the play.

Old Forge proved that they have Adirondack’s number as they recorded a very fine 1-0 victory over their rival. Morgan Payne scored the goal on a direct kick that she fired past the Adirondack goalkeeper in the first half.

A strong team defense did the rest to make that goal stand up. Shelby Egnaczyk made several difficult stops in the goal to record her third shutout of the season.

The defense was led the the play by their stopper, Kennedy Scott and their sweeper, Sam Notley, who both played outstanding throughout the entire game.   

Girls modified soccer

The girls’ modified soccer team got their season underway with a great performance in defeating Poland 4-0 last Friday, Sept. 23.  

Goals by Mara Gaffney, Chloe Barkauskas, Ally Cooper and Melissa Rockhill led the offense and the team’s quick defensive players did not allow Poland a chance to score.  

The team’s game set for Tuesday, Sept. 27, was postponed due to a thunder and lightning storm and was rescheduled for Friday, Sept. 30. The result of that game will be in next week’s edition of the Express.  

Girls varsity soccer

The girls’ varsity soccer team played only one game this past week, but, that game took them nearly a week to finish.  

Tuesday, Sept. 27, the team traveled to Westmoreland and started the game, but they did not finish it due to thunder. As most people know by now, once you hear thunder, the game must be delayed 30 minutes before it can start again. If there is more thunder later, it goes 30 minutes from that clap and on and on they go until it just cannot be played. Westmoreland does not have lights on the field that the girls were playing and they had to stop the action 15 minutes before the end of the first half with Westmoreland leading the game 2-1. Since the full half was not completed, it was not an official contest and it was postponed until Friday, Sept. 30.

Traveling, once again to Westmoreland, the two teams picked up where they had left off and continued the game with 15 minutes left to play to the end of the first half.  In many sports they simply replay the game in its entirety. The two teams played the rest of the game with neither team getting a score and Westmoreland won 2-1. The game was as close as the score indicates with the Old Forge goalie, Jessica Menges and her counterpart, each recording nine saves. Lauren Holt, on an assist from Maddie Phaneuf, scored the lone goal for Old Forge.  

It was another tough loss for this tough luck team as they lowered their league record to 1-5 and their overall record to 1-7.  Hopefully they will get some wins this week and in the Columbus Day Tournament this weekend.    

Boys varsity soccer

The boys’ varsity soccer team started this past week knowing that they had to win all three games they played to have any chance of winning the league title. Their opening game was at Westmoreland on Monday, Sept. 26, against a state ranked and undefeated team. Westmoreland, on the strength of some close victories over Poland and Old Forge, had a game and a half lead on the Eskimos.  

The boys did just what they had to do as they defeated Westmoreland 3-2 to climb within a half game of taking over first place. It was a great game, closely played, with Old Forge holding a 2-1 halftime lead and playing an even second half for their victory.  Austin Down was the offensive hero as he scored two goals with Kevin Kress scoring the other. Ethan Kress and Connor Rockhill each had one assist. Trevor Rice had eight saves in the goal.  

The team then hosted Remsen, a team they had defeated easily earlier in the season.  They knew that they would have a tough game on Friday at Poland and there was always a danger of looking past this fired up opponent. That they did, as they lost the game in double overtime, 4-3.  

The only way to describe the game was that it was a terrible loss and it virtually eliminated them from league title chances. Old Forge held a 3-1 lead at the half on goals by Trevor Godemann, Sam Waterbury and Kevin Kress. The only question about the first half was why did they not have an even larger lead as they dominated the action.

The second half was more of the same until another yellow card was called on Old Forge who had four called on them for the game. One player was removed from the game and Old Forge had to play with a man down. It did not take long for Remsen to take advantage, making the score 3-2.  It still seemed unlikely that they could tie us but that they did with only 2:30 to go in the game.  

Finally, in the first minute of the second overtime period, Remsen got the game winner and wildly celebrated the victory. It was the biggest upset in the league this year and certainly it was a death blow to Old Forge’s chances of a league title. The Rams have to be congratulated for never giving up and taking advantage of some poor play by Old Forge.  

Some people are quick to blame the referees as being the cause of the loss but it was clear that it was the team that lost that contest—not the referees. Any athlete knows in soccer and in basketball, you must adjust your game to how the refs are calling it.  Our athletes did not and some of them clearly lost their focus on what it was that they should be doing on the field. I will say that the seniors on the team, for the most part, were not guilty of this, and they should not be as team leaders. But, they could not get that instilled into a couple of the younger players and it hurt.

It was an ugly loss, and an ugly game and we have no one to blame but ourselves. If lessons were learned, then it will only help these young men be better athletes and men in the future. People deal with adversity all of the time, in athletic contests, at home and at work, and they have to learn how to cope with that. When you outshoot your opponent 31-14 and have an unheard of amount of corner kicks, 18, some other element must come in to play to lose the contest.  

Their third game of the week was what should have been a very important game for them at Poland on Friday, Sept. 30. With three starters out, two with injuries, Poland took advantage and defeated the Eskimos 2-1. Poland had a 1-0 lead after the half and played evenly with Old Forge in the second half. Kevin Kress had the goal for Old Forge.  

What started out as a high for the team certainly changed fast as their league record fell to 4-3-1 and their overall record to 4-4-1. They need to get back to what they do so well this week and a couple of victories before the tournament sure would help. I still say that this is a very talented team and are capable of going far in the sectional playoffs, so, they have a lot to play for.    

Cross country

The boys’ and girls’ cross country running teams traveled to Clinton last Wednesday, Sept. 26, to take part in a CSC League meet against Clinton, Ilion, Canastota and Mt. Markham. All of these schools, much larger than the Town of Webb Schools, are not in our division and do not count in our division outcome.  

The girls varsity did not have the full five members available to run in order to score as a team, but, they did well with the four girls who did run. Leading the way was Maddie Phaneuf, who seems to be recovering nicely from her muscle pull, as she placed second and was the only girl in the top ten finishers from Old Forge. The other three girls that competed that day finished the race and came in the following order for Old Forge:  Andrea Frey, Lauren Holt and Jessica Hannah.  

The boys had a complete team but were not able to defeat any of the teams competing in this meet. Tyler McGough and Tecwyn Williams topped the team followed by the following finishers: Connor Glasser, John Gaffney, Griffin Kleps, Adam Winslow and Will Johnson.  

In the boys’ modified race, only one runner represented the Old Forge team as the rest  of them were either at a soccer game or home sick. Westley Lamphear was the only runner from Old Forge and he had a great run finishing in first place against all of the other big schools running.  

In the girls modified race, Chloe Barkauskas was not going to let Lamphear get all of the glory as she also finished in first place. No score is taken in modified racing, but, our team, like our full boys’ modified team, would have placed very well. Behind Barkauskas came; Melissa Rockhill, Maggie Queen, Olivia Phaneuf, Mara Gaffney, Lauren Beckingham and Robin Smith.

Boys modified soccer

The boys modified soccer team played three games this past week with mixed results.  Unfortunately, I do not have the individual details of the games and hope I will have them to report in next week’s edition of the Express.

Monday, Sept. 26, the team traveled to Westmoreland and lost their first game of the season.  

Wednesday, Sept. 28, the team hosted Remsen and lost to them also, to even their record at 2-2.

It is very hard to measure the strength of the team based on their two losses as both Westmoreland and Remsen have no jayvee teams which means that they play freshmen on their team. This certainly makes a big difference at the modified level, but, it all evens out later at the varsity level.  

Friday, Sept. 30, the team got back to winning as they had a good game at Poland, a team that, like Old Forge, always fields a jayvee team. It was a good victory and brought the team back to having a winning season at 3-2.

One Square Mile of Hope

I normally write only about our high school’s athletic events and that is why this article might seem strange to see written by this writer.

I could stretch things by saying that the varsity club took part, and they did, but it was not an athletic contest. Recently, Inlet strived for a record by holding a square mile for hope event at Fourth Lake to build more awareness for breast cancer.  

We all know all about this by now, but, when I picked up this week’s edition of Sports Illustrated, there was a beautiful colored picture of canoes and kayaks assembled on the lake taken from above the formation.

The picture took up two full pages and certainly should make the organizers of this event very proud.

They not only broke the Guinness Book of Records, but, they also had the nation’s leading sports magazine there to photograph that floating raft.

Get a copy of the Oct. 3 issue of Sports Illustrated and see this fine photograph taken by Nancie Battaglia.