by Warren Kozireski
Sophomore Niko Nitti netted his first varsity goal midway through the first half and the Spencerport defense made it stand in a 1-0 shutout over visiting Brockport in boys soccer.
Brockport pressured early resulting in four corner kicks over the first twenty minutes of the game, but it was Spencerport who scored first.
Nitti received a pass from Drew DeJohn in the left corner, got around a defender at the endline and eventually scored on his own rebound in the 21st minute.
The Rangers had two more scoring chances in the first half – a Louis Giuliano shot off an indirect that was stopped on a sprawling save by Brockport goalkeeper Michael Sweeting and a pass from Emre Serbecti to Giuliano that was shot just wide of the far post.
Brockport’s best scoring chance came in the 53rd minute as a bullet shot off the foot of Dan Maines was stopped on a diving save by Spencerport senior Alex Veljovski in net – one of his six saves in the shutout.
The two-time defending division champion Rangers got off to a slow start this season with no returning starters. Their only loss over the last few weeks came to one of the top ranked teams in the state, Pittsford Mendon, and that came in double overtime.
“We’re starting to find out who we are as a team; it just took us a while,” said Spencerport head coach Tom Etsler.
