Glen Cove gets on winning track

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After starting the season 0-3-2, the Glen Cove girls’ soccer team had an important meeting in which all players were held accountable. Coach Peter Falen called this mandatory get-together in the classroom in lieu of an outdoor practice midweek. The result of the meeting was two subsequent wins: a 4-1 victory on the road at Malverne/East Rockaway, and a 4-2 victory over Clarke at home.

“I felt as if this meeting was what we needed at the time…This was an extreme team bonding moment,” Falen said. “If we didn’t have that meeting, the season just might be over.”

Falen referred to the fact that his offense just couldn’t find it’s footing early on, constantly relegated to playing from behind early on and looking for late-game comebacks.

Falen pointed to the Lady Big Red’s Sept. 13 draw against Great Neck South as a prime example.

“They had jumped out to an early lead and kept it until half,” Falen said. “We scored twice in the second half, but they pushed one through near the end and we tied.”

After Great Neck South’s Kristina Garcia scored the first goal of the contest, Glen Cove’s young offensive-minded Tammy Perez and Olivia Muzante netted a goal respectively to take the lead before Vivian Vlantis of Great Neck South scored with just about 15 minutes remaining in the game.

Perez, younger sister of former Glen Cove standout and one of the school’s all-time leading scorers Delilah, has been a bright spot in the Lady Big Red’s recent offensive improvement.

“She has emerged and is making her own name out there,” Falen said. “Size-wise she is one of the smallest on the field, but heart-wise one of the biggest. She is very skillful, yes, but sprints for every single ball that comes her way.”

Falen has shaken up the offensive gameplan, and the improvement has come along steadily.

“Our best improvement has come on the offensive side,” Falen said. “The one big adjustment I made is that, for our first few games, we’d be attacking with only two girls. The last few games, we’ve been attacking with five or six players.”

This has paid dividends, as Glen Cove is scoring goals at a higher clip and spreading around the ball more fluidly. Perez, Aliyah Stone and Alessia Rodriguez all netted goals in the win over Clarke, while Rodriguez added a goal in the Malverne/East Rockaway game and Perez pushed three across for her first hat trick of the season.

This has made it easier on the team captain and goalkeeper Jaynise Espinal, who made 16 saves combined in the team’s back to back wins.

Falen felt that this was the perfect time for his girls to turn it around. “We just finished the first leg of the season. Now, we start to play teams the second time around and we can watch film, do our homework, and gameplan for them,” Falen said. “If we can shut down the other team’s leading scorers and play our game, we will compete.”