After a regular season in which Beacon lost three times to defending champion Martin Luther King Jr. and once to Stuyvesant, there was an opinion that had begun to develop that didn’t sit well with the Manhattan powerhouse.
“A lot has been said about us not having any offensive punch,” striker Pascal Louis said.
Louis and the sixth-seeded Blue Demons went a long way towards disproving that notion in their PSAL Class A playoff opener.
Beacon scored six first-half goals en route to a 8-0 whitewashing of No. 27 Brooklyn Tech Saturday afternoon at Newtown.
“We were able to move the ball around the field well today,” Beacon coach Alec Mahrer said. “Pascal has that quick first touch that makes him a danger right away. We scored a minute into the game. He broke down the defense and played an outstanding game.”
Louis led the Beacon attack with a hat trick and added two assists. Joseph Nikic was a strong secondary catalyst, chipping in two goals and two assists. Peter Poulos and Walker Latham both added a goal and an assist apiece.
“We kept our composure today. We didn’t rush anything; we just passed the ball well and didn’t take any unnecessary shots,” Nikic said. “Coming into the game we knew we had to get quick goals off the start and we needed to take them out from the beginning.”
Beacon (9-4-0) made an immediate statement by scoring in the opening minute and tallying two more times before 10 minutes had elapsed. Brooklyn Tech (5-6-2) could never get on track.
“Beacon is a very good team, they outplayed us. It’s as simple as that,” Brooklyn Tech coach Anthony Cicolini. “We were shorthanded today. Some of our guys were taking tests while other guys arrived late. We were missing four of our starters at the start of the game and it hurt us.”
When the Engineers had possession in the offensive end, the few scoring opportunities were provided by star striker Muhammad Elfaham, who had scored 16 regular-season goals.
Elfaham, however, was completely shut down by Beacon’s stalward senior defenders Jacob Kipnis and Alex Schrum.
“We wanted to make sure that he didn’t get the ball and when he did to take it from him immediately,” Kipnis said.
For the Blue Demons, this win is only the beginning of what they hope is a long road to the city championship, the title they felt was theirs to win last year. They meet No. 11 Bayside, 8-2 winners over 22nd-seeded New Dorp, on Thursday.
“We didn’t want a first-round bye because we wanted to make sure that we were working hard each day,” Louis, a senior, said. “We wanted to come out, set the tone today for teams to see. Were going to keep playing Beacon soccer and take each game one at a time.”
