And on the third try, Jamesville-DeWitt boys soccer coach Joe Roach climbed to a new plateau – that of 400 career victories.
Two previous attempts, against Liverpool and Baldwinsville, on Sept. 5 and 6 at LHS Stadium had come up empty, but when the Red Rams returned home to face Cortland Tuesday afternoon, no suspense was required as J-D rolled to a 6-0 victory over the Purple Tigers.
All told, Roach has spent 38 seasons coaching soccer. His teams have averaged better than 10 wins per season, won nine league titles and are annual Section III title contenders, though a sectional championship eluded J-D until it finally broke through in 2010 and reached the state final four.
Again, the Rams have a championship in mind, but it was eager to get to Roach’s milestone before it moved on to the rest of the season, as Cortland quickly found out.
During a first-half scoring barrage, J-D scored four times in the first 22 minutes, erasing all doubt about the outcome. Then the Rams added two more goals and went through its whole bench, waiting for the end, where it could give Roach a celebratory ice-water bath.
Tyler Lichtenstein led the charge with a three-goal hat trick. Sean Mulvihill, Jake Socia and Elias Gantos each scored once, with Sam Mueller, Charlie Digristina, Spencer Sutherland and Nate Shimer picking up assists along the way.
On the same day that Roach got to 400 wins, the team that beat J-D in last year’s sectional final, CBA, remained undefeated with a big early outburst that pushed them past Homer 4-1 at Alibrandi Stadium.
It took all of 25 seconds for Monte Stroman to put the Brothers on the board, Jake Dinger earning the assist. Not stopping there, Stroman kept on bugging Homer’s defenders until, in the 15th minute, he notched his second goal off a feed from Matt DePerro.
From there, Stroman turned into a distributor, returning the favor by assting on Dinger’s goal late in the first half that gave CBA a 3-0 halftime advantage. Then, in the 55th minute, Dinger scored a second time, and again it was Stroman earning the assist.
East Syracuse-Minoa found the win column, too, shutting out Mexico 3-0. On its home turf, the Spartans applied relentless pressure on the Tigers’ defenses, leading to a first-half goal and two more in the latter stages.
Cole Belcher led ESM’s push, scoring two of the three goals, with Tyler Ott earning the other and Brad Hartung adding an assist. It took the work of Mexico goalie Tyler Stever, who had 14 saves, to keep it from getting more lopsided.
