VOORHEESVILLE — The Voorheesville boys’ soccer team was all banged up as it headed into a big contest with rival Albany Academy last Thursday.

The Blackbirds came away with a 2-1 win that kept them alive for the Colonial Council title heading into the final week of the season.

However, Schalmont clinched the league championship on Monday with a win over Ravena. Voorheesville remained in second with a 1-0 win over Lansingburgh.

The Birds hosted Schalmont on Wednesday to wrap up the regular season.

The win improved the Blackbirds’ standings to 13-2-1 overall this season and 10-2-1 in the Colonial Council. The Birds also won, 1-0, in a non-league game against Ichabod Crane on Saturday.
"We are down a lot of players," said Voorheesville Coach Mike Young. "We have some injuries and players being out. We had to bring up a sophomore and a freshman from varsity."
"Defense held tight"

Against Academy last Thursday, Voorheesville struck first.

Joe Klembczyk scored on a hard shot that stayed on the ground and found the lower corner of the goal with 24:36 left in the first half.

Albany Academy countered about five minutes later.

Chris Paratore scored after Voorheesville couldn’t clear the ball. Paratore was assisted by Denzel Ogunyase.

The Blackbirds got the lead goal with 34:40 left in the second half.

Shane Hiller scored his first varsity goal and it was a big one. It ended up being the game-winner; Voorheesville held off the Cadets as they marched down the field and had some good quality scoring chances.

Some poor shooting by the Cadets, good defense by Blackbirds, and goaltending by Lee Fenner enabled Voorheesville to hang onto the lead.
"Our defense held tight," Young said. "Academy was down big guys. Randy Taylor was out. But they had Denzel and Chris Paratore. Sometimes, we were putting two, three, and four guys at them. We knew how dangerous they are. We stopped them and it worked for us."

Young players

The win was impressive since Young had to put together a patchwork line-up of younger kids.
"We’re down to 16 guys," Young said. "We’re used to playing like that, 12 to 15 minutes hard. It’ll probably be like that for the rest of the season."

Young called up sophomore Will Miranda and freshman Zac Keller to the varsity.
"We’re down six players," Young said. "I was looking to bring anybody up to play hard. Keller plays like an animal."

Young has gotten good play out of all the young members of on his team.
"We have a lot of players with inexperience at this level," Young said. "We have seven sophomores and one freshman out of 16 players. But they play scrappy and play tight in the back."

The Blackbirds had a couple of bad games in their losses to Cobleskill and Schalmont.
"We had a couple of hiccups," Young said. "Schalmont’s good and Cobleskill at home is a different team. They upped their game and came at us. They got a goal and beat us. But this team has rebounded from that, like good teams do."

The Blackbirds have lost some offensive firepower in senior Rob Diblasi and junior Kevin Van Der Wende. Also missing from the Academy game were Dominic Venditti, Matt Miller, and Chris Thompson. Venditti and Miller are two of the top scorers for the Blackbirds.
"Rob is out for the year and Kevin is out for the year," Young said. "But we should have the other four or five back by the Schalmont game and climb back to full strength. Others contributed, but it’s important to keep everybody healthy. It’s hard here because sometimes you’re playing three or four games a week. Luckily for us, the last two weeks we’ve only had two games a week."