FIRST TIME, LONG TIME
Schuylerville wins first-ever boys soccer sectional title
COLONIE, N.Y. >> First time program, first time sectional title – welcome to the club Schuylerville Black Horses.
The Section II boys soccer record book only goes back 50 years, yes just 50 years, and Schuylerville is not listed in any sectional final in any class.
That all changed Saturday afternoon on the foot of Ian Winchell and Zach Saddlemire as the Black Horses etched their names into the history book with a 2-1 win over seventime sectional champion Ichabod Crane at Colonie High School.
The Riders, ranked No. 4 in the latest New York State Sportswriters poll were appearing in their seventh final in eight years.
The sixth-seeded Black Horses struck first when Ian Winchell sent the ball from the left side of the field onto frame and saw it turn into the top right corner of the goal igniting the Schuylerville bench and its fans.
“It allowed all of us to know ‘We got this,’” Winchell
said. “We were the six-seed coming in and everybody thought every team we played they’re going to win, ‘Oh Schuylerville is going to lose,’ no, we showed it to them. We know we can win and by me scoring, done.”
The Black Horses turned up the head on Ichabod Crane when Zach Saddlemire delivered a corner kick from the left side and had an unanticipated assist… from the Riders goalie who leapt up for the deflection but put it into the top of the net versus over it for the 2-0 halftime lead.
“It started to press them a little bit and the second goal even pressed them more,” Schuylerville coach Dave Gauci said. “I wish we got the third, but that first goal is huge in a sectional game and we’ve been doing that and holding on for dear life sometimes. You need breaks, the ball bounces in funny ways in soccer, and we’ve seen it and we got some breaks too.”
With the two goal-lead Gauci was wary that the elevated Black Horses could be deflated quickly.
“I was hoping they could sustain what they had, they were fired up, but we had to stay focused, had to do things right,” Gauci said. “There were times and they always will be times in soccer that ‘Oh boy, here we go,’ but they overcame that and they kept overcoming that and it makes a great team.
“There are seniors, there are leaders, there are baseball guys, they went to the state final, I have five of them, so they know how to win.”
The Black Horses had their hands full with Ichabod Crane’s Edgar Gomez and Logan Groat.
“They’re dangerous and we always had one in front, one behind. If they got the ball we would double them, we just didn’t want to give up a shot because they can shoot well too,” Gauci said. “I don’t think they had a lot of shots and I think our defense played very well.”
Gauci needed his defense to stand tall and put his faith in senior goalie Brady Eugair.
“That defensive core, they work together, they’re friends, they work off each other well and Brady (Eugair) is a first-year goalie,” Gauci said. “He has done tremendous(ly); he just reads the play well. We have so much confidence in him it’s good to see for a first-year goalie.”
Ichabod Crane delivered with less than five minutes to go in the contest, cutting the Black Horses lead to 2-1, with a full group of Riders in the box finally breaking through.
Schuylerville was able to move the ball into the offensive corners and negate any additional runs by Ichabod Crane in the closing minute to make history.
“I think it feels even better that we lost to them last year in the semis, so we knew we had something to prove and we did it. Here we are,” Winchell said. “All of us are just overwhelmed with joy. When we started it was a little rough, none of us thought that we would go this far, but we changed and we did it.”
Schuylerville will take on the Section VII champion, Saranac on Wednesday afternoon at a turf field site and time to be determined. The Section II/Section VII sub-regional winner will then travel to Section 10 (St. Lawrence area) on Nov. 9 in the regional final.