Home »

Frantzy Noze Haitian heritage lead Norwich Free Academy High School to Soccer State Championship

Goal-Oriented:A united NFA team has sights set on state championship

By Jason Christley, Day Writer

Click name for author info, most recent articles ... View Article Stats

Published on 10/25/2006 in Sports » Main Photo

Norwich -- To an outside observer, the list of things Norwich Free Academy accomplished Tuesday was pretty impressive:

? Ascended to the top spot in the state boys' soccer coaches' poll.

? Clinched its second straight Eastern Connecticut Conference Large Division title with a 4-0 beating of Fitch.

? And moved to within a game of completing its second straight undefeated run through the regular season.

The most remarkable thing about Tuesday, however, was that while the aforementioned items were nice, the program has progressed over the last eight years to a point where such accomplishments aren't good enough on their own anymore.

?We want the state championship,? said sweeper Anthony Restivo.

?We got to the semifinals last year,? said forward Keesen Howe, ?and yeah, that felt great. But we want to get farther.?

It was that Class LL tournament experience, ending in a one-goal loss to eventual champion Glastonbury, that earned the Wildcats (14-0, 9-0) enough credibility around the state to make it possible for coaches to even conceive of voting an ECC team No. 1.

While last year's historic run, which included the program's first conference title since 1991, largely rode on the 6-foot-3 frame of goal-scorer Jemmy Cange, it is possible that the Wildcats are a better team without the player who accounted for 49 goals over the last two seasons.

It is not a slight on Cange's ability. Rather, he possessed the hypnotic ability to take over a game in a heartbeat, perhaps making other players too reliant on him and content to get him the ball and watch him work.

Without that crutch, the Wildcats have been forced to look to each other. And at themselves.

The result is 10 players have accounted for the team's 54 goals.

?Right now, we're just playing as a team,? Frantzy Noze said. ?We don't have to worry about relying on one person to do everything.?

Noze was Cange's primary understudy last year, connected by their soccer ability and shared Haitian heritage. When NFA coach Robert Briones returned at the end of the summer from his two months studying in Brazil, one of his biggest concerns was Noze being overwhelmed with taking over the role of primary scorer.

?You're not Jemmy Cange, you're Frantzy Noze,? Briones told him. ?You have to play within your own system. You have to play your own game and help your teammates.?

Noze has done that and emerged as a leading league Player-of-the-Year candidate.

Not only does he have a team-high 15 goals, but he has also supplied 13 assists.

Keesen Howe, one of 11 juniors on the team ? and a sure sign the Wildcats' success has become self-sustaining ? has 11 goals and 10 assists. Andre Nicholas, also a junior, has 10 goals and two assists. Nicholas was one of five Wildcats to sit out Tuesday after suffering a myriad of injuries in Monday's double-overtime win over Waterford.

Howe and Noze are good friends off the field and their soccer chemistry reflects that.

?It's really good to have such a good friend on the field,? Howe said, ?and you know if you find him, he'll find you.?

Like in the 59th minute Tuesday, when Howe was taken down from behind outside the Fitch penalty box. The two conferred briefly over the ball and then, with Howe taking the kick, Noze broke into a perfectly timed run. Instead of firing on goal, Howe slipped the ball by the Fitch wall to Noze. Noze tapped it once, whirled and drilled a low shot into the net.

?Since the game started, we knew were going to beat them,? Noze said. ?It just took time.?

Five minutes earlier, Noze headed in a corner kick from Howe for the Wildcats' first goal.

In between, a hustling Howe plucked the ball away from a Fitch defender and beat the goalkeeper one-on-one for a second goal.

In a 10-minute span ending with a goal by Michael Mailhot off a Howe header, NFA outshot Fitch 11-3 and scored four times.

?They move the ball so well,? said Fitch coach Mike Wheeler, whose team is 5-7-2, 1-6-1. ?They move the ball to feet and that's so important in this game. And it's tough to defend. You're running all over the place marking them.?

Wheeler pointed to the work the NFA players put in together in the offseason.

?They work on the game during the high school season,? Wheeler said, ?but their timing and runs are already here.?

As offensively explosive as the Wildcats are, their defense has been a match.

Led by senior goalkeeper Brandon McFarlane and junior sweeper Anthony Restivo, NFA has given up just six goals and posted eight shutouts. The Wildcats have gone just over 433 minutes since they've been scored upon.

The number of times Restivo was able to dump the ball back to McFarlane or the defenders were able to dribble away from an attacker rather than just clear the ball in panic is indicative of the trust in each other and their ability to handle the ball under pressure.

?We have a lot of confidence in each other,? Restivo said. ?It took a little but to develop, but we're getting into a groove and starting to understand each other better.?

Briones and Co. realize their hardest task lies ahead.

Sixteen teams in Class LL began Tuesday with two losses or fewer, and while NFA is the only unbeaten and untied team in the state, four others in Class LL have yet to lose.

Simsbury, last week's top-ranked team, lost 2-0 at Southington (6-5-2). Both are Class LL.

Glastonbury was the 11th seed last season.

For NFA, though, this is what they've been waiting for.

The conference championship and the gaudy record are nice, but in the larger scheme of things, the time was more valuable because it gave them the opportunity to prepare for their future goals.

?We figured if we could pick up our game, we'd be in pretty good shape,? Howe said. ?And we are.?