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09/28/2014 12:00 AMThe East Haven boys’ soccer team fell to 0-7 with losses to Career/Hillhouse on Sept. 23 and Cross on Sept. 26. The Yellowjackets dropped their game at Career/Hillhouse 3-1 and backed it up with a 3-2 loss on home turf to Cross.
It was a chippy game with the Governors on Sept. 29 with both Cross and East Haven receiving a yellow card each. Throughout the game, there were plenty of fouls as players looked to get their shots in to keep up the intensity.
“I’m not a big fan of it, but sometimes if you don’t rise up to it, you get kind of taken away by it. So if you just let them kick you and kick you and kick you, you kind of let them dictate the game when that stuff happens,” Head Coach Jeff Sullivan said. “I don’t want it to happen, but sometimes you have to be tough and fight back at them.”
Although Cross had the major advantage in shots, East Haven scored the first goal of the game—on its first shot—and went into the half with a 1-0 lead. Diego Maldonado scored the goal on an assist by Rawad Al-hawai. Al-hawai took the ball wide to the left side of the box and sent a hard pass on the ground toward the top of the box. A running Maldonado had a strike at goal and the ball rocketed into the top left corner of the goal with just more than 10 minutes to play in the half.
Prior to the goal, East Haven was stuck in its own zone as Cross had all the answers defensively. A change in strategy was implemented to finally work the ball up field and into the goal.
“I think we love going down the middle of the field and when the guys finally realize that the space is wide, we get the ball wide and move the ball there,” Sullivan said. “That’s exactly where the goal came from. We got the ball wide, and then into the center where the space is.”
To open the second half, things were going in the direction of the Governors. First, Carmelo Reyes found the back of the net less than four minutes into the frame. Ivan Lopez sent a cross in from the right side, and the ball bounced all over in the box in front of East Haven goalie Conor Koziatek, and Reyes was able to poke it past to even the game.
A minute later, forward Brayan Lucero appeared to put East Haven back in the lead, but the referee waived the goal off on account of an offside call. The waived off goal swung the momentum in favor of Cross. Eventually, the Governors grabbed the lead when Chris Crespo scored on a phenomenal individual effort.
“He was pressing all day and holding him to a shutout all game is very tough,” Sullivan said. “He got his one that he was going to get no matter what.”
Cross found the back of the net again a few minutes later when Mohamed Kurouma walked in along on the right side of goal and placed a perfect shot past Koziatek to the lower left side. The shot hit the post and deflected in to put Cross ahead, 3-1.
Following the goal, Lucero connected on a free kick from 25 yards out to tie the game. Following a hand ball, Lucero took the free kick from atop the box, shaded a bit to the right, and bent the ball past Cross keeper Tyler Fernandez.
“That was big. It helped us out because at 3-1 at that point with about 15 to play, the game goes a whole different direction where we’re just probably hanging on and hopefully not giving up goal No. 4 or goal No. 5,” Sullivan said. “To get that goal in there, on frame the way that he did, it really picked up the team and changed the momentum of the game for the last 15 minutes I thought.”
With the momentum, East Haven had possession for most of the final 15, but couldn’t beat Fernandez another time to even the score. The Yellowjackets had a few great chances, but put the ball just over the bar on a few occasions. Sullivan applauded the effort at the end of the contest, but still would have loved to pull out the win.
“The guys are sticking with it. I questioned them today if whether they were going to show up and put their all into it or if they’re going to pack it in for the rest of the year,” he said. “They definitely left it all out there on the field trying to get their ‘W’ today so I was pleased with that effort because it could have went downhill real quick.”