Sophomore Lukas Fernandes netted three goals to take over the league lead and Tashko Strembenis dished out three assists to lead Churchville-Chili to a 5-0 win over Hilton in boys soccer.
“We finished our runs and scored a few goals – we’ve now scored 32 goals and allowed only four over our first ten games,” said Saints head coach John Mahoney.
“We have a solid goalkeeper and play great team defense, but we have a stretch coming up with Webster-Thomas, Aquinas and Athena who are all dangerous teams, so we still need to focus on the next game.”
“We had a great September, but now we start again in October.”
Fernandes staked the Saints to an early 1-0 lead just four minutes into the contest when a long pass from Cam Shipley got behind the defense. Fernandes broke in alone on the goalkeeper and found the net.
In the 14th minute, Strembenis found Frank Ciliberto on the left side of the box. He one-touched around the defender and put his shot inside the right post for the Saints second goal.
Hilton’s best scoring chance of the first half came in the 32nd minute as Anthony DeFeo had his shot knocked away on a sprawling save by Saints keeper Kyle McCane.
Strembenis pushed a through-pass to Fernandes at 42:57 for the third Saints goal. Seventeen minutes later it was Fernandes’ turn to pick up an assist as his attempt hit a Hilton defender and bounced high in the air where Tyler Randall headed it into the net to make it 4-0.
Fernandes completed his three-goal, four-point effort in the 67th minute on a cross-feed by Strembenis.
The Saints start just two seniors with eight juniors so this likely will not be just a one-year run at a Section V title.
“Strembenis is probably our best player,” said Mahoney. “He can own our midfield and takes over a game. Plus we have senior Sam Huzyk coming back. He has missed every game this season due to a knee injury from May, so an already strong team could get even stronger.”
Hilton threatened to break up the shutout bid early in the second half as Lukas Krause passed to AJ Laratonda, but he was stopped on a diving stop by McCane, who split the shutout with Nate Masters, who played the final nine minutes making one save.
The Saints improved their record to 9-0-1 and entered October ranked fourth in the New York State rankings.
10/6/13
