By Dylan Butler
Damion Chambers could only shrug his shoulders and force a smile. Twice in a one-minute span with his team trailing 2-0 late in the second half of the PSAL ‘B’ soccer semifinal, the Springfield Gardens senior striker had a pair of brilliant scoring chances, the type of chances he finished so many times during the season.
Instead, Brooklyn Tech keeper Andrew Sarmiento made two amazing point-blank saved to lead the top-seeded Engineers to a 2-0 win at Central Park’s North Meadow last Thursday.
“The first shot was frustrating enough,” Chambers said. “But when I missed the second one, I knew we were done. They were the two best shots we had all game and we couldn’t capitalize. You’re not going to get better opportunities.”
Brooklyn Tech (15-1-1) advanced to the PSAL ‘B’ final Saturday at Long Island University, but were upset by No. 3 Lehman, 4-1.
For fourth-seeded Springfield Gardens (13-3), it was the second straight year losing an undefeated, top-seeded team. Last year, the Golden Eagles lost to eventual champion Bayside in the quarterfinals.
“[Brooklyn Tech] played good, but we did not play our game today,” said Springfield Gardens head coach Clifton Schultz. “If we played the way we played in the last 10 minutes for the whole game, we would have won.”
Instead the Golden Eagles played tentative soccer in the first half. After getting an early scoring chance and catching Adam Schumacker, Brooklyn Tech’s main target, offside several times, the Engineers took control of the game away from Springfield Gardens and began to create their own chances midway through the half.
“In the first half we were sleeping and the guys were kind of nervous,” Schultz said. “In practice, we emphasize three-touch soccer and we played that in the last five minutes. If we played that in the first half we would have had more opportunities to score.”
A low cross by Mikhail Blyumin found Schumacker inside the box and the junior beat Springfield keeper Kemar Robinson low inside the near post from 14 yards out to put Brooklyn Tech ahead 1-0 in the 22nd minute.
Eleven minutes later the Engineers struck again as this time Schumacker set up the goal, passing the ball to Phillip Zubkowicz two yards inside the box. Zubkowicz’s shot also beat Robinson low inside the near post as Brooklyn Tech took a 2-0 lead into the second half.
Springfield played more determined in the second half, passing the ball better, which created more chances. Chambers, who was marked all game by Rasheed Ajishafe, finally got a scoring opportunity in the 70th minute when he broke in on Sarmiento, who came off his line to challenge Chambers. But Sarmiento stopped the low shot from 10 yards out.
A minute later Chambers again found some space and raced in on the keeper, but yet again Sarmiento got the better of Springfield Gardens’ leading scorer.
“He’s been strong for us all year, bailing us out in tough situations,” Zubkowicz said of Sarmiento. “We love that guy.”
For Brooklyn Tech third-year coach Ed Cascio, the win makes up for a 2-1 loss to Springfield in a first round playoff game last year.
“We wanted to exact our revenge,” he said. “We have a lot of four-year players, eight of our starting 11 are seniors. This is a very close knit family and they all pull for each other.”
Schultz, meanwhile, doesn’t like to compare his teams and situations from year to year. But as he slung the ball bag over his shoulder and prepared to leave Central Park, the Springfield Gardens coach was disappointed because he thought this was a special group of players.
“We wanted to win everything this year, this year we had the team,” he said. “We had one or two weaknesses, but personally I thought we had a pretty good group of guys. We won our division and were seeded fourth in the playoffs and that’s a good thing for Springfield Gardens High School that we achieved that this year.”
Reach Associate Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 143.
