Raiders eye SOSSA soccer three-peat
The Holy Cross Raiders have been the cream of the crop in Niagara boys soccer for the past three years.
With a 4-1 victory over the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs Monday, the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association representative won its third straight over all Zone 4 AA title. The Raiders will now head to the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association championships Thursday in St. Catharines looking for a three-peat on that stage as well.
Holy Cross isn’t looking ahead, but the Raiders would like to surpass the fifth-place finishes they’ve had at the last two Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations championships.
“This is probably the last year that you will see us go to OFSAA for the next few years and with this team, I think we should have won OFSAA the last couple years,” Holy Cross striker Altin Ibrahimi said. “We have been a bit unlucky with the way that it has happened.”
Those OFSAA setbacks have provided extra motivation for the Raiders this season.
“We started this season by playing a AAA tournament at McMaster and we ended up winning it all,” he said. “It was pretty crazy because none of the teams knew who we were.”
The 19-year-old Ibrahimi, who plays travel soccer for the Club Italia men’s Ontario Soccer League squad, is a key member of the Raiders.
“He’s gotten stronger as the years go by,” Holy Cross head coach Marc Ferretti said. “You can’t knock him off the ball, his shot is really good and he’s really cerebral and has an excellent soccer IQ as well.
“He is a quiet leader but he does his job and he has been doing it for four years with us.”
Ibrahimi feels he has improved a lot during his four years at Holy Cross.
“My coach describes me as an emotional player, but over the last couple of years I’ve been able to channel that more into energy instead of getting frustrated at a ref, a player or a bad pass.”
The 12B student agrees that he is a cerebral player.
“I know how to move the ball quickly and get it into the right areas.”
Despite doing that and controlling much of the play, the game was tied 1-1 at the half, before Holy Cross pulled away with three goals in the second half.
“Control of play was ours but we would have liked to have scored to be a little more dominant right away,” Ferretti said. “We’re used to it, but we usually control a little bit faster on the scoreboard and on the field.”
The Raiders did eventually take control.
“We wore them down in the second half and we knew it was ours because we could use our bench and finish them off that way,” Ferretti said
Ibrahimi felt his team’s first-half struggles weren’t physical.
‘We have been in a little bit of a slump mentally, but we picked it up in the second half,” he said. “We started off strong in the second half and put them away early.”
Churchill head coach J.P. Verrucci was happy with his team’s performance Monday.
“We had a chance when it was 1-1 to go up 2-1 at end of the first half and we gave them a good fight,” he said. “We aren’t used to being in this position. Our goal at the start of the season was to get Sir Winston Churchill on the soccer map in Niagara and I think we did that today.”
After going 1-2-1 in league play last season, the Bulldogs went 5-0 in league play and then won the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Zone 4 AA championship by defeating Collegiate 6-1 in the semifinals and Governor Simcoe 4-1 in the final.
Verrucci knew his team was in tough against Holy Cross.
“They have 16 returning players and they are undefeated in the SOSSA region in the last two years and we knew what the standard was,” he said. “We know what we need to do to get there next year.”
That needed recipe is straight forward.
“We have to continue to build a culture of playing for each other and I think we did a good job of that this year,” Verrucci said. “We have to stay positive, back each other up and play simple.
“It’s hard to play simple soccer, but when you do, good things will come.”
Verrucci selected keeper Ben Aylward as his player of the game in the zone final.
“He made some stellar saves for us,” he said. “We were going back and forth with goalies and he’s a Grade 10. We will have him for a couple more years and we thought it would be good for him to step up to the plate and take over and he did.”
STATS PACK
Raiders 4 Bulldogs 1
Mick and Angelo’s/Johnny Rocco’s Players of the Game: Holy Cross striker Altin Ibrahimi and Churchill keeper Ben Aylward.
For the Holy Cross Raiders: Goals by Sebastian Agudo (2), Ibrahimi and Connor Carroll.
For the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs: Goal by Henry Allan.
Up next: Holy Cross advances to the SOSAA AA finals Thursday in St. Catharines.
