Lady Rams and Rams soccer wind down their seasons
October 16, 2024 at 11:25 p.m.
Lady Rams head soccer coach Danny Alvarado has been twice selected as League Coach of the Year in the recent past, but his current fall season coaching performance may be his best yet.
Alvarado, an ex-Ram three-sport varsity athlete, has his young, relatively inexperienced team rebounding from a 3-12 record last year to the point where they are playing .500 ball.
Down to the wire
And, despite losing to White Plains in a 4-0 shutout last Thursday (10/10), they still have a realistic shot at making the playoffs they missed last season.
The Lady Rams are 7-7 going into the final two games of the fall season later this week (after deadline) against a beatable Ramapo and a powerhouse Fox Lane.
The Lady Rams’ chances for a split are good. An 8-8 finish could virtually guarantee a playoff berth while losing a deuce could mean finishing behind the 8-ball with a losing record that could well leave them outside the playoff bracket and looking in.
Turnaround back story
But, win or lose, Alvarado has already engineered quite a turnaround from last year's disastrous season.
And the job he has done is a tribute to how well he knows the girls as a well-regarded physical education teacher in the Port Chester School District.
He has, for example, called up eighth grader Valeria Torres so she can play varsity ball alongside her freshman sister Mariana. Freshman Melani Lopez is contributing alongside senior Daniela Lopez. And sophomores Erika Barzallo, Jhamileth Cabrera, Kelly Mendoza, Gianna Rende and Kelsy Samano are all playing well beyond their years as varsity players.
The junior contingent includes Leidy Emily Estrada Juarez, Britney Larrosa, Yasari Martinez, Ashley Ramirez and Aracely Sanchez. And the senior contingent revolves around Juliana Castillo, Tamara Correia, Ashley Cortes, Elisabeth Cruz, Kimberly Flores, Saidy Hernandez, Alison and Daniela Lopez, Ellenna McDonald, Leslie Reyes and co-captains Gioiella Pastena and Bridget Morocho who anchor the offense and defense respectively.
Knows the territory
Alvarado has also tapped into the team's ties to the school's large Latino population by occasionally speaking to the team in Spanish, a salute to his own familial roots stretching back to Ecuador. His background as a former Ram athlete (football, wrestling, Track & Field) also helps him to relate as does his coaching other sports as well (head Lady Rams T&F coach, assistant wrestling coach) and his apprenticeship under other Ram mentors and ex-Ram athletes (Joe Facciola, wrestling head coach, and Greg Domestico, head Rams T&F mentor and former football and wrestling coach).
Senior Daniela Lopez tries to score in the Lady Rams’ Thursday, Oct. 10 contest with White Plains. Port Chester was shut out in that home game against the Tigers.By Joseph DeCarlo
Alvarado also hasn't hesitated to bring in former Lady Rams soccer great Cecilia (Ceci) Martinez and ex-Ram stalwart Jonathan Garces, both of whom played ball for SUNY Cortland, to liven up the practices with drills they learned on the collegiate level.
Rams Cafaldo top mentor
The Rams veteran head soccer coach John Cafaldo is yet another individual whose excellence has been part of the game for so long that it is easy to take his accomplishments for granted. Cafaldo, for example, is the only Ram coach to take Port Chester to within one goal of the school's only state championship (All-State scorer Steven Hernandez's-led 2012 team lost to the defending state champion Long Island team 2-1 in the finals in Albany) and he now has Hernandez, a former collegiate All America at American International University and an ex-pro) back as an assistant Rams coach to help inspire the team's heavy Latino base.
The result is Cafaldo's well-conditioned Rams are playing playoff caliber soccer as the unranked and underrated 6-3-4 team nobody wants to play because they have shown the ability to knock off or tie some of Westchester's top 10 ranked teams evidenced by their 1-0 win over Ossining last Thursday (10/10). Jayson Reyes scored the lone goal in that game off an assist from Jayden Coyt. The Rams have also tied such top 10 ranked teams as Horace Greeley (2-2), Fox Lane (1-1) and New Rochelle (1-1). And now with the coldest temperatures in months at hand, they are shaping up as the chilliest team to beat.
Veteran roster depth
The Rams field a junior-senior dominated roster revolving around senior goalies Pedro Barreno, Sebastian Sanchez and junior Matthew Ceja, and senior midfielders Rocco Larizza, David Dolores, Brayan Lapoyeu, Marcos Barajas, Steven Zhinin, Bertrand Arana-Moreau and Alex Sigua.
Right on their heels come such high-kicking junior midfielders as Jayson Reyes, Emmanuel Garcia, Mark Pintado, Juan Gamboa, Jayden Coyt, Brandon Flores Alvarez and Emanuel Valdovinos. That adds up to a lot of firepower waiting to explode with the fuse being lit by senior forwards Alexander Villa, Ivan Henao and Enrique Faras and junior Dereck Mendieta.
The defensive core includes seniors Denison Suhul, Wali Imafidon, Giovanni Arrequin and Joao Silva, juniors Jelson Umanzor, Daniel Sagastizado, Arthur Oliveros and sophomore Celso Silva, the only underclassman on the team.
Strength in numbers
If there is strength in sheer numbers, the Rams soccer team has the largest turnout of any Port Chester team, not surprising given the popularity of the sport in the heavily Latino community. But it is the conditioning and coaching by dedicated mentors like Cafaldo and Hernandez that make the Rams likely playoff contenders as their fall season winds down with an away game against a beatable Lincoln team Thursday (10/17) in Yonkers at 4:30 p.m. Their season finale away against Fox Lane Saturday (10/19) at 10 a.m. could go either way, maybe even end in another tie, and they could yet meet again in the playoffs.
The Lady Rams saved one of their best efforts for their next to last game Tuesday (10/15) when they shut out Ramapo 10-0 with seven different players scoring: Valeria Torres led the hit parade with a 3-goal hat trick, Jamileth Cabrera scored twice and Lopez, Mendoza, Pastena, and Mariana Torres (Valeria's sister) each scored once. That scoring outburst gave them their eighth win, guaranteeing at least a .500 record and five wins more than they recorded last year.
The Lady Rams wind down their season away against Fox Lane Friday (10/18) at 4:30 p.m. But win or lose, the comeback kids figure to make the playoffs because of their remarkable turnaround season. And next comes the wait for the playoff brackets and seedings at the end of the month when the postseason playoff season begins. But you have to be in it to win it. And the Rams and Lady Rams figure to be in there with teams that could surprise a lot of people.
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