MHS soccer teams blanked in county tourney

Boys play well in loss to Franklin

By: John E. Powers
   
   The effort was better, but the outcome not yet what Mike Shambach and the Manville High School boys’ soccer team are after.
   Manville dropped to 0-10 last Saturday when it lost to Franklin 2-0 in a preliminary round of the Somerset County Tournament. The Mustangs were the 16th seed, while Franklin was seeded ninth.
   But the Mustangs held Franklin scoreless in the first half. Senior forward Glen Fantuzzi scored twice in the second half for the Warriors.
   "It was a good effort, we competed and we played a solid 80 minutes, that’s all I really ask of them is to play their hearts out and they did Saturday," Shambach said. "Possession was a factor. We played on a turf field. Our kids were comfortable playing there. They played there all summer. Our team needs to keep possession of the ball to be competitive on a field that is a natural."
   Milton Chinchilla played extremely well in the midfield.
   "He really is a kid who doesn’t stop running and is always hustling; he controlled the middle, he’s disciplined," the coach said. "He played defense well and was marking and covering and attacking. He was in the right places and making good traps. He was really all over the field."
   The Mustangs also changed their back line a bit. Shambach has tweaked how sweeper Marvin Sosa and stopper Jimmy Lozada line up.
   "We have gone from a flat to stack," he said. "It worked."
   Shambach also said that he is now giving middie Dawid Brozyna some freedom to press up front to create scoring chances. Dawid’s brother Rafal, who graduated in June, was the leading scorer for the Mustangs last fall.
   "He can still move to the midfield, but at least half the game he’ll play striker," Shambach said.
   Shambach said that junior Anthony Valverde and senior halfback Roland Yakobchuck had quality shots in the county game.
   "They had some great overlapping runs," the coach said.
   MHS junior Andrew Saultz mad 10 saves
   "I’m hoping the momentum swing we built Saturday we’ll carry over this week," Shambach said.
   The Mustangs were scheduled to play at Belvidere Monday and Delaware Valley at home Thursday.
   The Manville girls were eliminated in the Somerset County Tournament by 11th-seed Mount St. Mary 6-0.The Lady Mustangs fell to 2-8.
   "I was hoping we had a better seed so that we could have maybe played Gill St. Bernards or Rutgers Prep," MHS girls’ head coach Erin Delaney said. "You know, we got knocked out early and it would have been tough going up against Watchung Hills (the sixth-seed Mount St. Mary plays in the next round), but I was disappointed where we got dropped."
   Delaney did say Manville had a better performance than the first time her team played Mount St. Mary, a 7-0 setback in the season-opening game.
   "My girls were very pumped and they were ready for it," she said. "I did some switching up. We moved Rhianna (Lebedz) to up top with Angelika (Lazur) and Marzena (Brozyna) and they worked well together. Minus the score, I thought it was the best game I’ve seen them play. We stayed in and hung tough."
   The girls got to see a Red Bulls game Saturday night.
   "They were really pumped up after the game," Delaney said.
   Manville goalkeeper Marta Fabiyan made 14 saves in the county game. She also played extremely well in the team’s regular season losses to North Warren and Hackettstown last week.
   "I thought we had North Warren; I was very disappointed in them (Manville)," Delaney said. "I told the girls at halftime that we were in the game. It was really one game where we had the opportunity. They scored the first one in the second half and our kids’ heads went down.
   "I told them that Marta had made something like 15 saves at that point and that we were running out of bullets. One of them was going to go in. Marta played awesome. She said, ‘coach I feel like I’m letting us down.’ I told her, ‘Marta, some keepers don’t see as many shots in a season, let alone a game.’"
   Manville was scheduled to play Belvidere at home Tuesday, then at Highland Park Thursday before playing at Middlesex next Tuesday.