Chaminade rolls past MLK of Manhattan in Firebird Invitational
Jack Veletanga of Chaminade reacts after scoring to extend the Flyers' lead over MLK (Manhattan) to 3-0 in the first half of a non-league boys soccer game at Kellenberg on Saturday. Credit: James Escher
Chaminade showed up Saturday at Kellenberg’s Firebird Invitational as members of the “Also receiving votes” club for the United Soccer Coaches’ Top 25 national rankings. Martin Luther King Jr. showed up as the No. 6 team in the country.
As it turned out, the Flyers looked like the team that should’ve been ranked sixth in the country, rolling to an 8-0 victory over the Knights from Manhattan.
The game was called by mutual agreement with about 16 minutes left after MLK received its third red card.
“I really do think that now that we won, especially by 8-0, we should be at least Top 25,” Chaminade senior midfielder Jack Veletanga said after contributing career-high totals of three goals and three assists.
The Flyers, 2023 NSCHSAA AA finalists, are off to a 5-1 start.
“We have been playing well in the first four or five games of the season, but we felt like there’s more,” coach Brian Anselmo said. “… This was, I think, our breakout game.”
Veletanga established the tone of the game, scoring just 37 seconds after it started. Then he sent a corner kick from the left side and Kevin Duffy scored from in front for his first of two.
Then Veletanga made a move in the middle of the box and scored. It was 3-0 with 17:06 remaining in the half. Less than two minutes later, he delivered another.
Danny Bonilla was next. And Thomas Prince made it 6-0 with 5:20 to go in the half.
Soon the frustrated Knights, who arrived at 5-0, got hit with their second red card. Coach Martin Jacobson pondered ending it at halftime, but the Knights decided to play on. They were used to playing on wider fields.
“Had I known the size of the field was the size of a football field, I probably wouldn’t have accepted the game because our game is not compact like that,” Jacobson said late in that first half. “Not to take anything away from Chaminade.”
Chaminade had a promising day.
“Our end goal is the state championship,” Veletanga said, “and every single day is just progress toward that.”
