Rockville breaks away from Titans, wins easily

Defending division champs dominate entire field

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo chris rossi⁄the gazette Rockville’s Heshaun Fernando (5) and Fabian Aguila clear the ball away from Einstein’s Henry Ventura during 3-0 win on Monday.

It was, literally, the only thing that went wrong for the Rams all night.Opening up division play with a bang, Rockville (3-0) registered its third consecutive shutout, besting the Titans (1-3), 3-0, at home on Monday night. Goycochea scored the first two goals of the evening to stake the Rams to the comfortable lead. Missing out on the hat trick seemed to bother him, but he seemed more pleased with the team’s dominant defense than anything he’s provided offensively.

‘‘I think we’ve only allowed two shots on goal all year,” said Goycochea, who himself has already netted four scores this season. ‘‘We have the two brothers Heshaun and Kaushal [Fernando, the former a defender and the other a defensive-minded midfielder], and those guys are my heroes, man. And Phillip [Dabney] is a great goalie. We don’t allow any shots at all — that tells you how good our defense is right there.”

Through three victories, the defending Montgomery 3A⁄2A⁄1A Division champion Rams have tallied an impressive nine goals. But it is the defense that has been unbelievably good. Not only did Einstein not tally a quality shot all night, they barely possessed the ball in Rockville’s defensive end at all. Everywhere a Titan turned, a defender was in his face.

This is no accident. Before the season, Rockville coach Abdel Makhlouf decided to change from the 3-4-3 formation that he had traditionally employed. Having lost his sweeper from last year, Daniel Shook, he felt the best way to make up for his absence was to simply replace him with two defenders.

Thus far, the 4-4-2 strategy has not only been stifling, but it has taken nothing away from the offense.

‘‘I couldn’t replace our sweeper with one man, but what’s happened is that the two players who replaced him, John [Wharton] and Kaushal are taller and faster,” said Makhlouf. ‘‘So this is a new system. And then I have another midfielder, Fabian Aguila, who is fast and is a defensive-minded midfielder, too.”

With just two strikers, usually Goycochea and senior Eduardo Flores (who scored the Rams’ third goal against Einstein), one would think there would be less scoring opportunities. But the goal output have been similar. And it’s not as if midfielders are turning into forwards.

The reason, at least according to Makhlouf, is his team’s diligent use of the diagonal pass. Watching a Rams’ game, it’s clear that they rarely attack the middle of the field. Many of Rockville’s scoring opportunities occur when a midfielder runs the middle as a decoy, while the forwards sneak up behind and receive long cross-field passes.

With defenders paying attention to the middle, which is generally a clogged area anyway, Rockville attackers are able to often catch defenses napping on the wings.

‘‘The most dangerous pass is the diagonal long pass, and that’s what we work on,” Makhlouf said. ‘‘I try to avoid going in the middle, because it’s too crowded, so we go to the flag. When you push the ball on one far side, the defense does not react to who’s behind them on the other side. Alex is a quality striker, and he can get lost in the shuffle and be very dangerous.”

Though both the offense and defense are clicking right now, Makhlouf is cautious. He feels the big games will be against B-CC, Wheaton and Kennedy, which defeated the Rams a year ago.

But the players can sense that the hot start is no fluke.

‘‘We’ve got to defend the title,” Goycochea said. ‘‘Everybody’s really good. We’ve got the team to do it.”