The Villa Angela-St. Joseph soccer team has started the year 1-3-0 with a game at Warren JFK coming off the long holiday weekend on Sept. 8.
Losses to Holy Name, Wickliffe and Garfield Heights and a win over Rhodes to begin the 2015 campaign had plenty of positives for Coach K.C. Petraitis to reflect on.
“Holy Name has a great squad and they beat us, 6-1. We played decently enough but simply did not have the horsepower to keep up,” Petraitis said.
“We have been playing pretty well, but we made some errors during the Wickliffe and Garfield Heights matches, which ultimately cost us in the end. We were down, 1-0, to Wickliffe at half, but then they took care of business early in the second half and knocked the wind out of us. Garfield Heights was a back-and-forth match, but we had some major mistakes and careless play in the back third that led to our demise. Unfortunately, that comes being such a young team with decision making and adjusting to the speed of high school play.”
The win over Rhodes was a showcase for Chad Porter, who scored four goals in a 6-2 win for the Vikings.
“We are waiting for the return of one of our starters, Lora Stewart, who has been sidelined with an injury for a couple of weeks. We hope to have her back next week,” Petraitis said.
“King Seyou has been a nice surprise. As a sophomore he is contributing on both sides of the ball and has stabilized our midfield and attack. He gets other teammates involved and is making everyone better around him. Another walk on is Brian Martin who came in as a basketball player, but is central in playing in the center midfield and really shutting down teams defensively. His size and speed have helped our back four improve dramatically and relieves a great deal of pressure.”
The stats on the year for the VASJ soccer team through Sept. 7 are as follows:
Goals
Chad Porter (7)
King Seyou (3)
Nicholas Phelps (1)
Dylan Hoddinott (1)
Assists
Chad Porter (3)
Melanie Mitchell (2)
Nicholas Phelps (1)
Saves
Dan Gail (39) Goals Allowed (16)
Brian Williams (2)
