Elmira District Boys Soccer

EFA boys triumph Three local teams fall in finals. Star-Gazette November 5, 2006 Area soccer teams went 1-for-4 Saturday in Section 4 championship games. The Elmira Free Academy boys emerged with the Class A crown after topping Owego Free Academy 1-0 at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta. In the two other boys games in Oneonta involving local teams, Vestal edged Horseheads 2-1 in Class AA, and Marathon downed Notre Dame 4-1 in Class C. In the Class C girls final at Binghamton Alumni Stadium, Notre Dame lost 5-0 to Lansing. BOYS •EFA 1, Owego 0: Kevyn Rustici scored the game's only goal and Bobby McGinnis made 10 saves as Elmira Free Academy blanked Owego for its first sectional soccer championship since 1989. Rustici scored early in the second half off a flip-throw from Shane Scott. Rustici headed the throw-in past the Owego goalie into the far corner of the net. Academy (9-6-3) then held off Owego (11-3-5) to earn a spot in intersectionals against Section 9 champion Newburgh. The game is tentatively scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Hudson Valley Sportsdome in Milton. "They pressured and pressured the entire first half, the entire second half," EFA coach Derek Hamilton said. "With the way Bobby McGinnis was playing and our entire defense as a whole, I just knew we weren't going to give up a bad goal. It was going to take quite an effort to get one past us." McGinnis finished with 10 saves, including a diving stop of a shot targeted for the corner in the first half. Hamilton, in his second season as head coach, is a 1996 graduate of EFA who played high school soccer for Sam Kutchukian. He said he and assistant coach Zach Sarno, also a '96 EFA grad, wanted to return the Blue Devils to the type of program they had under Kutchukian. He said the players have responded and quickly adapted to the system installed by the coaching staff. "We play with so much heart on a game to game basis," Hamilton said. "We may not be the most talented team every time we step on the field, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a group of guys that play with more heart and more intensity than the guys we have. "What we see right now is the culmination of the last two seasons. Last year we were losing games with regularity, but they were close games. This year, after a year's maturity, we settled down and started winning those one-goal games."