Forest Hills 7 Lane 0
Forest Hills soccer coach Michael Windischmann called his team’s 7-0 trouncing of Franklin K. Lane yesterday a “learning experience.”
His squad had trouble adjusting to the artificial turf and to one another, since it was the Rangers’ first contest of the season. Lane coach Luis Villada would love to have such problems.
“For a lot of guys, this was their first time on the field for a real game,” Villada said of his team that was able to start practicing only two weeks ago. “They did well for a while, but then they didn’t see any way out. They got frustrated and they gave up. They didn’t want to be out there. I don’t blame them.”
Because of ineligibility problems, Lane (0-1) was forced to play with 11 players, just enough to fill each position. Needless to say, in addition to being physically overmatched by Forest Hills, Lane had several players out of position.
“I’m normally a forward, but we have some guys that aren’t used to playing, so I would never have gotten the ball,” said Lane’s Mustafa Makboul, who spent the entire game on defense. “We haven’t had enough time to practice.”
Lane returned just one player from last year’s squad that went 10-5-1 and because some players hadn’t been medically or acacademically cleared to play by the school, the situation grew even worse. Lane has seven players who, for various reasons, aren’t allowed to suit up.
Forest Hills, the defending Queens A PSAL champion, dominated the match, although the score didn’t reflect that until the second half. Giancarlo Giancobbone netted a goal eight minutes into the game, but Forest Hills (1-0) failed to score again until the 43rd minute. The Rangers did nearly everything right except shoot, leading 2-0 at the half. In particular, junior Nissim Seror consistently created scoring chances for himself, but couldn’t cash in before the half.
“I wasn’t relaxed,” Seror said. “I thought [the goals] would come since I kept getting chances.”
He was right. Seror finally broke through five minutes into the second half, when he headed one in to give Forest Hills a 3-0 lead. Minutes after that, Seror drilled a shot off the top crossbar and then followed it in.
“Those goals were a big relief,” Seror said. “I could hear my teammates getting on me.”
The ribbing from the sideline was good natured, as the Forest Hills players realized that the game was theirs even with the score 1-0.
“I could see us building and improving throughout the game,” Windischmann said. “We had a very good defense back from last year and they played well. It was only a matter of when the goals would start to come for us.”
And they came in bunches in the second half. Giancobbone scored twice more for a hat trick, including his final goal which he lofted in from the far left corner. He admitted it was meant to be a cross, but after the opportunities Forest Hills didn’t capitalize on early, it seemed fair that it found the back of the net.
Still, no one knows more about bad fortune than Villada.
“I saw right away when we started practice that some of these guys couldn’t kick the ball. I knew we had to go back to basics,” Villada said. “I guess it can’t get any worse.”