The Valley Central Vikings had won their first two league games of the season before running into a roadblock.

A familiar one.

The Vikings fell, 4-0, on Thursday to the Cornwall Dragons in an Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association Division II boys’ soccer game. It also was a rematch of last year’s Section 9 Class AA semifinal.
“They’ve got some voodoo with us, and we give up some freaky stuff against them,” Valley Central coach Paul Berkowitz said.

“But they’re such a quality team. You can’t make a mistake, or they’ll be like sharks with blood in the water.”

The Dragons scored three first half goals – their first goals of the season in the third game – in the space of about five minutes.
The Dragons scored their first three goals of the season in quick succession late in the first half.

Carlo Vallejo scored the Dragons’ first goal in the 23rd minute off an assist from Aaron Schulman. Three minutes later, Jayden Wendt scored off an assist from Griffen Harden.

Then, two minutes after that, Schulman banked a shot off the left goal post, and into the goal for a 3-0 lead.

“We made a mistake early and they followed up with another one,” Berkowitz said. “It’s hard to recover, and I think our guys did a really good job recovering. The second half was an even game, so you’ve got to like the heart and effort that our guys put into it.”

The Vikings wanted a clean sheet in the second half, but Harden snuck a through in the closing seconds of the game.

“We could live with that because you’re either going to score a goal or give one up when you’re pushing,” Berkowitz said.

All that time, the Cornwall defense limited the Vikings’ scoring opportunities. Xavier Fonseca had their only recorded shot on goal and Zimmer only needed to make one save.

The Dragons outshot the Vikings, 10-1. Nathan Welt made six saves in his fourth game since replacing James Joyce, who graduated last year.

“He’s done a great job so far,” Berkowitz said. “This is our fourth game, and we’ve haven’t let in more than one goal in a game in the previous three. There was only one solid goal today. But credit to Cornwall, we can’t score if we can’t shoot.”

The Vikings had won two games in a row before falling to Cornwall. They beat Minisink Valley, 2-1, on Sept. 6 and then opened last week with a 2-0 win over the Monticello Panthers.

“(I liked) the mental approach in the second half,” Berkowitz said. “In the second half, they played hard. They have to keep their heads up and you don’t learn much from winning all the time. You learn from mistakes, and I think we learned a little bit today.”