GUILDERLAND — After watching his soccer team lose on Monday afternoon, Guilderland soccer coach Mike Kinnally was still confident in his players.

Kinnally didn’t like everything he saw, but he liked enough to feel his team is just on the fringe of being considered among the Suburban Council elite.

The Dutchmen’s 2-1 loss to Niskayuna left Kinnally surprisingly upbeat.
"The last couple of years against the upper echelon teams," Kinnally said, "we’ve been getting closer, getting closer. Shenendehowa is the only team that I thought was better than us. We’ve played with everybody else right now."

The Dutchmen have a 5-3-1 record but have been in every game. The Dutch lost the only game they have been dominated in — by Shen — 1-0.
"We are not getting beat by the good teams 3-0 or 4-0," Kinnally said after Monday’s game. "Against Saratoga, we controlled play 70 percent of the time, Colonie was 60 to 70 to percent of the play, and today we controlled more than half. Shen controlled at least 75 percent against us, but, other than that, we’ve been there."

In Monday’s game, the Dutchmen were the victims of bad luck and defensive mistakes.

Guilderland held a 1-0 lead late in the first half when Niskayuna tied the game on a goal from Sean Fishel. The defense couldn’t clear the ball and Fishel got the ball and hit a shot that deflected off a Guilderland defender and bounced past goalie Uriah Myrie to even the game at one.

Nisky got the game-winning goal late in the second half. Scott Rodgers scored for the Silver Warriors.

Early lead

Sophomore Tony Campagnano scored for the Dutchmen in the first half. Frank Campagnano hit a great ball into the offensive box and Niskayuna goalie Luke Citriniti came out to play the ball. But Tony Campagnano re-directed it with his head after the ball took a high bounce. The ball went over the goalie and into the net to give the Dutch the early lead.
"Other teams are finishing our mistakes," Kinnally said. "We crushed the ball and their goalie made some great saves."

Citriniti made five saves for the Silver Warriors — including a great diving one in the first half on a shot by Frank Campagnano. Myrie made eight solid saves, but wasn’t tested by any difficult shots.
"We had an opportunity to beat them," Kinnally said. "Their goalie made two great saves off Frank. Even without those, we are in overtime, if we don’t score on ourselves.
"We’ve played six outstanding games," Kinnally said. "But four of the last five goals we’ve given up we made defensive mistakes on"Defensively we’re not deep. I feel this was two teams in the upper echelon in our league. We had offensive chances today. For 30 minutes in the first half, we controlled the play. We crushed the ball and one should have been automatic. But we lost and it was anybody’s game."

Fixing mistakes

The coach is confident the Dutch mistakes can be corrected.

But the mistakes aren’t anything that can’t be taken care of.
"We are not making any mistakes that can’t be fixed in practices," he said. "We’ve made bad choices at times."

The Dutchmen won their first three games this season — including a 1-0 win over Columbia.

Guilderland then lost to Shen, but tied Saratoga, 0-0, in a duel between goalies Warren Gross and Myrie.

The Dutchmen then beat Burnt Hills, 5-0, last week but lost to Colonie, 3-2, in overtime.

Guilderland bounced back with a 6-0 win over Schenectady High School of the Big 10 before losing on Monday.
"They’re used to winning," Kinnally said of Niskayuna. "We are not used to winning yet."
The Dutch have been "snake bitten" at times this season, Kinnally said. However, Kinnally feels his team can do some damage during the rest of the season and when the sectional playoffs come around.
"We are playing with the good teams," Kinnally said. "And the teams we know we’re better than, we’re killing them. We’re taking shots at the upper teams."

The Dutch may be able to compete with anybody.
"We’re waiting for mistakes to happen," he said. "But we’re not an average team. I think there are only two teams better than us, Shen and Bethlehem."