With the Valley Central Vikings’ season ending, some of the team’s younger players were able to get some late-game experience.

Trailing for most of the game, the young Vikings gave up two late goals in the second half as the Washingtonville Wizards handed them a 6-1 defeat on Oct. 15 at Valley Central High School in Montgomery.

“Full marks to their team,” Valley Central coach Paul Berkowitz said. They’re solid. Soccer is a cool game.

There’s a couple of chances when it was 0-0 that were just missed, and it could have changed the flow of the game, but it didn’t. They took control of the game and got a couple of good goals.”

After the Vikings’ missed opportunities, the Wizards cashed in two first-half opportunities.

The first came when Washingtonville’s Ausin Mobray scored the first of his two goals in the 10th minute.

Then about six minutes later, Jovanni Christ-Bryant scored a goal off an assist from Justin Giron.

Those two goals were enough to put the Vikings on their heels.

“We were definitely on our heels,” Berkowitz said. “The last game, they took us behind the woodshed a little, so we definitely had more showing. Then toward the end of the game, I was able to get a bunch of guys in that have been working hard all season and deserve some time. Then they got two more goals.”

Mobray scored his second goal of the game just three minutes into the second half, but then Valley Central’s Xavier Fonseca responded with the Vikings’ only goal of the game, off an assist from Steven Kapnisakis.
“Once the momentum didn’t continue our way, it was just uphill from there.”

The Wizards scored three more unanswered goals the rest of the way, getting scores from Caleb Nicolas, Abraham Estrada and Gavin Rich. The Wizards got assists from Moray and Nana Tufour on the final three goals.

“I hope (the younger players) see that kind of blue-collar work ethic we’ve always had,” Berkowitz said. “You just work has hard as you can no matter what.”

The Vikings have one more game this season, an Oct. 22 road contest against the Goshen Gladiators.

A year after reaching the Section 9 Class AA semifinals, where they posted one victory before getting eliminated, the Vikings’ 5-9 overall record and 4-7 mark in the Orange County Interscholastic Athletic

Association Division II will deny them a return trip to the sectional tournament.
The Vikings will graduate 12 seniors from this year’s team.

“They’re a good group of kids,” Berkowitz said. “They get along well with each other. We only have one or two that might go on to play. That’s the important part: learning life lessons through sports.”