Most coaches on the wrong side of a 6-1 score in the playoffs would be irate with their team.
Not Thomas Nguyen.
The Brooklyn Tech coach was smiling after his team’s five-goal loss to No. 1 Francis Lewis in the PSAL Class A boys’ soccer quarterfinals Tuesday afternoon at New Dorp HS on Staten Island. The Engineers had never made it this far and upset two teams as the seventh seed in the ‘S’ bracket.
“We have come this far,” Nguyen said. “I’m very happy with these kids. There’s nothing else I can ask for.”
Brooklyn Tech (7-6-2) only finished the regular season with a .500 record in mediocre Brooklyn A West. But then the Engineers caught fire, upsetting No. 2 Susan Wagner in the first round, 1-0, and upending No. 3 Brooklyn International, 2-1, in the second round.
“I’m really proud of the team,” goalkeeper Yevgeniy Remennik said.
The senior allowed all six goals, but few were his fault. Francis Lewis just had too many offensive weapons for an inexperienced Brooklyn Tech backline. Six different players scored goals for the Patriots. Remennik had his fair share of fine saves, too.
The Engineers were without second-leading scorer Muhammad Elfaham due to poor grades. It “messed up our formation a little bit,” Nguyen said, but his team still played hard, even when it was down big. Lewis had a 4-0 lead at halftime.
Senior forward Roy Getsis and senior midfielder Colm Dillane never stopped fighting. Getsis pushed by a pair of Patriots second-team defenders to score the Engineers’ lone goal of the game in the 66th minute.
“That kid is phenomenal,” Francis Lewis coach Roger Sarmuksnis said of Getsis. “He didn’t give up.”
Neither did Brooklyn Tech. Or else the Engineers would have never been fitted with Cinderella’a slipper.
