South boys soccer turning the corner
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Williamsville South's Zakaria Zahran, right, maneuvers around Maryvale's Tom Luangrou during the Billies' 3-2 home loss on Sept. 18. South won its next two games to improve its record to 2-4-1. Photo by John Rusac Purchase color photos at www.BeeNews.com

After a 0-4-1 start, Williamsville South is making a comeback.

The Billies have won their last two soccer games, including a 3-0 road win over Cheektowaga last Thursday and a 3-1 home victory over Pioneer last Saturday.

Scoreless at halftime with Cheektowaga, sophomore midfielder Brendan Lawler scored 7.5 minutes into the second half. Junior Derek Caputi added a goal seven minutes later. Sophomore midfielder Zach Schwartz closed out the scoring with a penalty kick at the 39-minute mark.

Coming into the game, Cheektowaga was undefeated.

"We went out there and took it to them," said South coach Peter Sugg. "They're a very aggressive team. They don't let you move and force you to get rid of the ball quickly. We didn't allow them to get anything going. Both halves were carbon copies of each other. The only difference was when we had scoring chances, we capitalized."

Sophomore goalie Steve Crawford earned the shutout.

A free kick by defender Brian Van ee 10 minutes into the game put South up 1-0 against Pioneer although Sugg felt the score could have been 4-0.

The Billies' offense started to connect in the second half, scoring twice in eight minutes. Senior forward Trevor Lawler scored at the 25-minute mark. Sophomore midfielder Max Mangold, a JV call-up, made it 3-0, at 33 minutes.

South started playing better as a team beginning in the second half of its 3-2 home loss against Maryvale on Tuesday, Sept. 18.

Trailing 3-0 at halftime, the Billies stormed back with goals by Trevor Lawler and junior midfielder/ defender Justin Hofschneider at the 28- and 33.5-minute mark, respectively, but could not get the tying goal. Lawler beat Maryvale's goalie on a 50-50 ball and headed it into the net; Hofschneider's goal came on a diving header.

In the first half, Jake Nowak scored twice and Josh Hall added what would be the game-winning goal for Maryvale.

"It was weird because every mistake we made in the first half, they capitalized on," said Sugg. "It's not like they came out and completely dominated us from the beginning to halftime."

"In the second half, we played like a totally different team," he added. "The last 12 minutes of the game they were hanging on and we were knocking the ball around in the box. Honestly, I thought we were going to tie it up."

South opened the season with 3-0 non-league losses to Iroquois and Williamsville East on Tuesday, Sept. 4 and Monday, Sept. 10, respectively.

"We did not play poorly against either team; we made some mistakes and they scored," said Sugg.

Sugg said his team couldn't create scoring chances against East and did not score on the opportunities they had against Iroquois, which included hitting a goal post.

Scoreless against Iroquois with 25 minutes remaining, the Chiefs scored twice in 50 seconds. Sugg lauded the goaltending abilities of Crawford.

"He was the reason why the game was scoreless for so long," said Sugg. "He played out of his mind."

Following Iroquois and East, South tied Frontier, 1-1, in a non-league game held on Wednesday, Sept. 12.

"Frontier had two scoring chances, one in the first half and one in the second half which they scored on," said Sugg. "It was disappointing because we controlled play."

Schwartz scored with 1.5 minutes left in the first half off a free kick.

"Van ee took a free kick, Zach ran in front of a Frontier player and headed it into the goal," said Sugg.

South opened league play with a 1-0 stinker against Depew on Friday, Sept. 14.

"It was our worst game we've played all year," said Sugg. "Coming off three non-league games, I thought we were playing well. I had a good feeling good against Depew but for whatever reason, we did not get it done."

"As poor as we played, we also missed two clear cut breakaways and had other chances when the game was 0-0 to get a one, two or three goal lead," he added.

Depew's scored 10.5 minutes into the second half.

Overall, Sugg thinks his team's defensive unit of juniors RJ Grampp (sweeper) and Chris Toone (outside defender) and Van ee (stopper) as well as Nick Hoffman (outside defender) has been solid. Sugg also lauded the play of senior midfielder/forward Sam Alt.

South lost 1-0 to Starpoint on Monday. They host Amherst at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com