Offense explodes as City topples Northwestern, 11-5

City College’s Hal Goetz saw his first action in goal on Monday against visiting Northwestern.

Goetz, a former defender, made his first start of the season in goal and helped lead the Knights to an 11-5 victory.  He had 11 saves in the win.

The sophomore had been practicing stopping shots in between two cones on the ground because the East Baltimore School hadn’t received their goals before the start of the season.

“That was Hal’s first time inside of a goal,” said City coach George Sfikas.  “One of the problems we had this year was that we didn’t have goals until [yesterday], so we had to work with the cones and that makes it a lot tougher [to prepare].”

Sophomore Thomas Kwenah paced City (2-1) with three goals.  Juniors Lorenzo Squadrilli and Lukas Ficke each netted two while Kebo White, Aiden Walsh, Alonzo Hellerback and Alex Henry all contributed a goal for the Knights.

“I thought offensively, we really played well,” said Sfikas.  “We scored 11 goals, that rarely ever happens but I was kind of disappointed defensively, I thought we were a little better than how we played.”

Forward Tevin Mitchell scored four goals and Jose Miranda added another for the Wildcats (1-3).  Wilfredo Rosales had two assists and goal keeper Joseph Abujana had a strong game between the pipes, making eight saves.

City jumped out to a fast start after defender John Akuma played a ball in from midfield and Squadrilli finished it past Abujana.  Squadrilli added his second goal a few minutes later and Kwenah put home his first on a pass from White, giving the Knights a 3-0 lead.

But Northwestern wasn’t going to go away quietly.  The Wildcats didn’t field a team last year but showed flashes of talent against City.

After the Knights were called for a hand ball in the box, Miranda set up for a penalty kick and fired it past Goetz to put Northwestern on the board.  Mitchell followed two consecutive goals before adding another right before halftime to knot the score at 4-4.

In the second half, City built a two-goal lead after White and Walsh found the back of the net.  Mitchell scored his fourth goal to draw the Wildcats within one but the Knights ran off four straight goals to insure the win.

“I was impressed with how we came back in the first half after being down 3-0,” said Northwestern coach Steve Frederick.  “We stayed with them but then all of the sudden, it didn’t happen for us.”

He added: “Tevin Mitchell is one of our high-powered scorers and if you give him the ball, he can do the job but you can’t have just one man contribute, it’s got to be the whole team.  We had some breakdowns in the defense and if we could have kept the ball in our offensive zone, it might have been a different story.”