PLATTSBURGH — It’s starting to become the norm, the Chazy Orchards appearing in the North County Soccer League’s championship.
With a 5-0 victory, the top seed Orchards defeated the second seed Giroux’s, to cap off the NCSL’s 50th season Saturday.
The game marked the Orchard’s sixth consecutive finals appearance, winning back-to-back titles two times over that span.
“For it to have been that big of a score, our team would have needed to have played an absolute near perfect game, and honestly, that’s what we played,” said Brett Giroux, the commissioner of the NCSL and manager of the Chazy Orchards.
The Orchards were dominant in controlling possession of the ball and generating shots on goal, putting pressure on Giroux’s defense from the start of the match. Giroux’s kept the ball out of the goal for several shots, but with the volume of offense from the Orchards it didn’t last.
Despite the game starting at 7:30 p.m., the game still was played through 80+ degree heat with a humidity so high fog formed around the pitch.
The conditions created an environment so harsh spectators in the stands were sweating under the moonlight. Fresh legs were key to staving off exhaustion.
The Orchard’s owed a large part of their offensive engine to its bench, said Giroux.
“We have a lot of subs. And I think that’s one thing that worked in our favor last night is we rotated ourselves as much as we could,” Giroux said. “I talked about it beforehand with everybody.
“It was just, ‘Hey, it’s hot. We’re all gonna stop, we’re all gonna take a break.’ And it definitely worked out to our advantage.”
The dominant win was a result of a combination of good execution and a little good luck.
“Everyone on our team played their role perfectly, and it felt like all the breaks and bounces went our way,” Giroux said. “Giroux’s is a good team and honestly, I don’t know if there’s much that they could have done differently, that would have changed the way our team was playing.”
Giroux ended the game scoreless, but the talented team knows this was not its last shot at a title. The season was still a success for the squad, who secured the two seed and made its first finals appearance since the team won the title in 2016.
“I’ll be back next year,” said Giroux’s goalkeeper Zane Stevens.
The desire to return to the finals is one the Orchards can relate to, as the team faced a similar hardship since its founding in 2014. The Orchards had two finals appearances before getting over the hump for the first time in 2020.
The wins feel much more rewarding after building the team up from its founding, said Giroux and Craig Botten, two of the Orchard’s founding members.
The finals matchup drew a respectable crowd despite the weather. Friends, family, and teams eliminated from playoff contention all filled the lawn and the stands. The community around the league not only makes the playoffs special, but embodies what the NCSL is all about.
“Anytime we get a crowd at one of these games it’s always a special thing,” Giroux said. “All the guys love it. All the guys look forward to it all year.
“It’s special to have a crowd. It’s probably the one time of year you get to look forward to playing on the Plattsburgh State turf, having people there under the lights.”
The league thrives off of its support from the North country, and is always eager to turn spectators into players or team managers.
“We love, obviously, being able to hold the trophy at the end of the year, but I think all of our guys would attest that having more teams in the league, and expanding the league is more important to us,” said Botten.