Chaminade soccer focuses on defending title with win
The Chaminade boys soccer roster has almost entirely turned over from last season, but that doesn’t really matter. There is a state championship to defend and the Flyers are fixed on making it happen.
The two remaining starters from the team that claimed the school’s ninth state Catholic championship last season are seniors Garrett Smith and Thomas Herzog. They have been charged with the task of teaching a winning culture to approximately 20 new players and instilling in them an urgency to defend that crown.
“We played last season and we get that everyone doesn’t have what we have,” Smith, a center back, said on Saturday after the visiting Flyers posted a 3-1 non-conference victory over 2021 NYSPHSAA Class AA champion West Islip. “It’s on us to show them what is involved in winning a championship and helping them understand what it’s going to take.”
“Every game, we have to play a ‘Hard 80,’” he added referring to minutes in a match.
“You know this is a good group because they’ve already bought into our system, already adjusted from to the jump from JV,” said Herzog, a midfielder. “You can sense that this group not only is looking to defend its title, but wants earn our team national recognition.”
To that end, Chaminade coach Michael Gallagher has put together a rigorous non-conference schedule to go with its difficult CHSAA slate, one that begins Tuesday with a Diocesan title game rematch with St. Anthony’s. The Flyers have played and beaten Notre Dame (N.J.), Delbarton (N.J.) and now West Islip, which finished last season ranked in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25. Non-conference game against St. Ignatious (Ohio) and St. Benedict (N.J.) – ranked first and second nationally – lie ahead.
“We are challenging ourselves because we have loft goals,” Gallagher said.
Saturday’s anticipated meeting between the Flyers and the Lions turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax. West Islip, “a little beat up” according to coach Dennis Mazzalonga, played reserves much of the game. Chaminade left a handful of regulars home as the team has been besieged by an upper respiratory illness.
Chaminade (3-0) broke a scoreless tie with a pair of goals in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Peter Leavy scored off a pass from Eric Oldenborg and Joseph Sayers out-maneuvered a pair of defenders for the second goal. The Lions (4-2) cut the margin in half when 2021 Newsday Long Island Player of the Year Aidan Lodie scored on a penalty kick with six minutes to play. Herzog iced the win 28 seconds later by plowing through defenders and putting the ball in the lower right corner of the net.
Flyers keeper Andrew Marotta wasn’t tested much by the Lions, but has been a reason Chaminade can aim high.
“It’s like we have a fifth defender out there with him in the game,” Herzog said. “He gets to everything in the box.”
“He’s especially good against balls in the air,” Smith said.
Chaminade will face its most-important measure of the season thus far against St. Anthony’s. The teams split their games in the 2021 regular season before the Flyers won the Rockville Centre title game 1-0.
“That will be an extremely hard game,’ Smith said. “After last season, we know they’re going to want it.”