Addison Trail gets a kick out of Novy title
Addison Trail rode the good fortune of shootout success to defeat Maine West 2-1 Saturday afternoon to capture the championship of its own Joe Novy Invite.
The Blazers were perfect in the first four rounds of PKs, while their guests converted just one and had another turned away by keeper.
"It was a long afternoon filled with plenty of excitement, some close calls, a lot of up-and-down soccer, and a couple of red cards which still equaled a pretty good team between two good opponents," said an exhausted Ryan Dini, who finally saw an end to this 180 minute marathon come to an end when Dannys Garcia steered in his winning spot-kick.
"Despite the loss, I feel like we came out of a long week of soccer finding out a few things our team, which is still in the early stages of sorting things out and trying to find out who it is after losing nearly 80 percent of our scoring and so many terrific soccer players," said Maine West coach Alan Matan, whose club went 2-0-1 in pool play to earn the right to play for the tourney championship.
It took just nine minutes for the Warriors (2-3-1 overall) to strike, when a slow build-up saw Danny Silva find the foot of teammate Christian Ayala in the area unmarked. The senior calmly fired a right-footed strike past Moran, who had no chance to stop Ayala's first goal of the season.
The Blazers recovered swiftly, however, coming right back down after the whistle to grab the equalizer. Damien Zielinski was the architect of the goal, with a strong run and carry to the endline before finding Sergio Marin at the near post. Marin then sent the ball to the chest of Tom Kania; the sophomore brought the ball down, spun and steadied himself before drilling the ball past keeper Nick Pisani from close range.
Both sides generated quality chances after Kania drew the Blazers even, with the Warriors having the better of it leading into the break.
Three consecutive corners yielded nothing of note on frame, with Addison Trail defending the set pieces as well as it could. Then, in the closing minutes of the first period, Edgar Felix drove his free kick attempt through the wall, but straight at Moran for the easy save.
Dini dropped his top striker, Elias Leyva, back into the midfield to help generate more in the attack from the midfield.
A lovely piece of soccer nearly produced a highlight film goal at 50 minutes. That's when Kevin Alvarez sent a superb cross to the spot, meeting a flying Kania, who thumped his header just over the bar.
Things began to get chippy afterwards, and when tempers flared in the 59th minute, both Marin and Maine West's Giuseppte Pulvino were sent off, forcing both sides to play a man down for the final 21 minutes.
When neither side could produce the go-ahead goal, it went straight to PKs. Leyva, Baeza and Alvarez found the back of the net easily, while only Silva answered with a Maine West conversion in the first round.
"I was really nervous just before my kick, because I know how crucial that second round kick is after your opponent makes his," said Baeza. "I settled down long enough to put it in, and right now, this is a great win for all of us, and the growth of the team as well."
"We had some chances today, and couldn't put them away," Matan said. "But we also found a few guys who can play for us after we lost a couple through injuries. We improved this week, and we will continue to do so from here on out."