Still in search
Patriots still in search of first Division II victory
Against a desperate West Warwick team, Davies came up short in its search FOR ITS fiRST wIN, losing 9-1.
WEST WARWICK — The objective headed into Tuesday afternoon’s Division II showdown against winless Davies Career & Technical High School was as straightforward as they come for West Warwick: Take care of business.
Needing to secure three wins in the final four matches of the regular season in order to qualify for the playoffs, the Wizards dispatched Davies by a 9-1 final on a wet, drizzly day at Maznicki Field, putting themselves in a promising position from here on out.
Spencer Godfray led the way as the only player to score multiple goals in the win, while seven other players each tallied a score of their own to bump the Wizards’ record to 5-8-1 on the year.
“It was a good win,” coach Mike Grandchamp said. “At the end, we were able to get our jayvee and freshmen in there.”
The Wizards will be right back at it tonight on the road against Narragansett with a chance to get that much closer to punching their ticket to the playoffs, having battled their way through an up and down season in which consecutive wins have been hard to come by.
“We have business to do. We have two games left. We haven’t been in the playoffs in three or four years, so we’ll look to take care of business tomorrow night in Narragansett,” Grandchamp said.
Should they fall short against the Mariners, Friday’s Senior Day match against Mount Pleasant would fall under the category of a must-win contest, as would their final contest of the year next Tuesday against Wheeler.
As for Tuesday’s win, there was little drama from beginning to end, as the home team built a 5-1 lead for themselves at the break. Godfray got the scoring started in the fifth minute of play, scoring on a shot past Davies goalkeeper Josh Pereira who managed to come up with nine saves on the day in the losing effort. Diego Alvarez scored less than two minutes later on a shot assisted by Ben Cuomo.
The visitors showed brief signs of life when Ronaldo Lopez scored what would prove to be the team’s lone goal of the day on a shot inside the box, cutting the deficit to 2-1, but it was all Wizards from that point forward. Godfray added his second goal of the day before the half, with Christian Tomosso and Sebastian Correia joining in on the action.
Photo by Jerry Silberman
The second half featured more of the same with Sam Flyntz, Nathan Flor Alex Gresian and Eddy Lopez each netting goals of their own to complete the one-sided victory.
Davies coach Orlando Monteiro has seen this type of match unfold on more than one occasion this season.
“It’s been a tough season, that’s for sure,” he said of his team, now 0-14-0 overall.
“It’s just a young group. We lost a lost of players from last year, the seniors,” he said, speaking to their troubles from the start of the season. “This year, we did not get a freshman group that could start for our varsity, so it’s kind of making itself a little bit hard.”
He was proud of his team’s effort on Monday in a 5-1 loss to East Greenwich, but felt that the fatigue from that match may have carried over into Tuesday’s against West
Warwick.
“Yesterday we played a really great game, moved the ball really well. I was very pleased. Today, I don’t know. The field, it didn’t help. It’s not a good field and we were probably tired too,” he said.
While he would certainly welcome a win on his team’s behalf in their season finale today against Cranston East, Monteiro is more focused on putting the right pieces in place for a successful future.
“That would be nice,” he said of the opportunity to get into the win column in 2019. “If it comes, it comes, but if it doesn’t, I’m just trying to get the players to play as well as they can and build up for next year.”