By Ted Waddell
MONTICELLO — September 13, 2002 – It was a hard day’s afternoon for the home team.
On Tuesday, the visiting Minisink Valley Warriors blanked the Panthers of Monticello, 5-0, in OCIAA Division II boys’ soccer competition.
The Warriors scored three times in the first half. Shawn Manzie put one into the net unassisted about five minutes into the match; approximately 10 minutes later, Brad Gurda scored unassisted; and later in the half, Brent Sauchuk snuck one past the Panther keeper on an assist by Liam Welsh to put MV (2-2, 1-1 Division II) up 3-0.
Early in the second half, Sauchuk scored again. About five minutes later, Manzie scored the final goal of the blistering hot afternoon to give the Warriors a 5-0 win. The last half hour of the match was scoreless, as the heat took its toll on both squads.
“I thought we played well and Monticello did a nice job even though they have a fairly young program,” said Minisink Valley Coach Peter DeMarco.
“We have a little more experience right now,” added DeMarco, now in his 12th season at the helm of the Warriors boys’ varsity booters. “All my players worked very hard, and everyone I put in contributed . . . we did well because we functioned as a team.”
Jason Whitehead anchored the net during most of the game for the Warriors. Back-up keeper Alex Hayes played the final minutes.
This is Kevin O’Shea’s seventh season as coach of the Panthers.
“We hung in there for the first 10 minutes,” O’Shea said. “We gave them too many opportunities. Defensively, we backed up and let them possess the ball . . . they didn’t miss a chance.”
According to O’Shea, once his team was down three goals at the close of the opening half, they really didn’t have a chance to play catch up.
“They had too big a lead, (and) we didn’t have enough offensive power to make up the difference,” he said.
Last year, Monticello played in OCIAA Division III with three soccer powerhouses – Cornwall, Goshen and James I. O’Neill – along with a trio of competitive teams: Ellenville, Liberty and Sullivan West.
This autumn, Monticello (0-2, 0-2 Division II) is competing in OCIAA Division II and facing teams such as MV, Port Jervis, Valley Central and Washingtonville.
“It’s a totally different league this year,” O’Shea explained. “We will be playing teams that have travel clubs, where kids have been competing since they were seven or eight years old. We don’t have anything like that.”
Keepers of the day for the Panthers were 11th grader Justin Gray and Ryan Meddaugh, a sophomore. Gray was credited with six saves and Meddaugh had five.
In the second half, Meddaugh caused the Warriors to back up a bit and take stock of the situation when he booted the ball from one end of the field to the other.
“His form wasn’t ideal, but his execution was great,” commented his coach after the game.
O’Shea credited the efforts of three hard chargers with keeping Monticello in the game: senior Derek Kilcoin, freshman Krystian Krol and senior John Meddaugh.