Rams, Blue Devils get with the program

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005

Abdel Makhlouf is in his fifth year as the boys soccer coach at Rockville High. John Haigh is in his fifth week in the same position at Springbrook.

Makhlouf is an Egyptian-born accountant coaching at a Class 2A school. Haigh is an American-born high-school teacher coaching at a 4A school. The two coaches have similar ideas about how to run a program. The main difference seems to be how much time each has had to install that program.

On Monday at Rockville, the Blue Devils showed flashes of what Haigh hopes is their future. But the host Rams stayed within themselves and converted when it mattered, scoring a 3-1 win.

‘‘I was worried about [Springbrook],” Makhlouf said. ‘‘My worry was true; it’s a strong team. They are a big side, big kids. They caused us a lot of problems in the first half and the second half. Once we got the third goal, it gave us a psychological edge, and they took it from there.”

Junior Luis Lemus put the game out of reach in the 69th minute and also assisted on a first-half goal by Alex Goycochea that put the Rams (3-1) ahead, 2-0. The Blue Devils responded immediately to Goycochea’s goal when forward Chauncey Manson scored on a breakaway two minutes later.

That goal seemed to spark Springbrook (0-1-1), which dominated possession for the rest of the first half and much of the second. That left Haigh feeling better than he did after the team’s first game, a 0-0 draw with Kennedy.

‘‘We’re just starting to play soccer — for brief periods,” Haigh said. ‘‘The end of the first half and maybe middle of second half, they played good soccer. I watched the tape of the Kennedy game and I couldn’t see more than maybe 10 minutes of good soccer.”

Haigh’s standards are pretty high. As the coach of Blair’s junior-varsity for the past three seasons, he compiled a record of 29-1-1. Last year’s Blazer JV allowed only one goal all season.

At Springbrook, he’s trying to change more than just the team’s look on the field. Four regular starters were on the bench at the beginning of the game for skipping practice. Haigh has implemented a mandatory study hall between the end of school and the beginning of practice. Even some currently ineligible players are attending the study hall in hopes of making the team next fall.

‘‘Now with our consortium, we can get kids from other middle schools,” said Haigh, who is still teaching at Blair but plans to move to Springbrook next fall. ‘‘We want them to look at Springbrook and say, ‘Hey, they’ve got a winning program there.’ We want parents to look at Springbrook and say, ‘The coaches really care there. It’s about scholastics.’”

Those are the kinds of things that Makhlouf has made a point to instill over his five seasons at Rockville. The Rams have no consortium to draw from, just a lone middle school, Earle B. Wood. The tiny player pool gives many Rockville athletic teams fits; Makhlouf tries to make up for it with team IQ.

‘‘I compensate for that by our organization on the field, where everyone knows their space,” he said. ‘‘Knowledge is power. ... The only way to win is by being the smartest team. And the only way to show me you’re smart is to get good grades. So we go to study hall, and we make sure they don’t get into trouble.”

Four years of that philosophy — the same one Haigh hopes to instill — has already paid dividends for the Rams. Last year, the team complied an 8-4 record against mostly larger schools in the county, then made their second straight trip to the regional semifinals.

The challenge for the Rams this year is that for the first time since taking over the program, Makhlouf doesn’t have Conor Fitzpatrick or Jason Ortiz. Those two players manned the center of midfield for four years before graduating last spring. In their places are Lemus and junior Kaushal Fernando, who missed Monday’s game with an injury.

‘‘These are my key players, my playmakers,” Makhlouf said. ‘‘Every mistake is magnified because if you make a mistake, it’s a counterattack. ... They are not freshmen, but they have not played my system.”

So far, though, the new players seem to be doing just fine in the old system. Rockville’s only loss was to Wootton in a tournament over the weekend. The Rams look they could be division and regional contenders again this season.

‘‘It’s a nice team here,” Lemus said. ‘‘We pressure a lot. We try to be calm. It was hard to open the field, ’cause it seemed like they played hard. But we managed.”

Notes: Senior Alex Selgman scored the Rams’ first goal, a header from a deflected shot by freshman Luis Rivera. Junior Eduardo Flores assisted on Lemus’ goal.