SPORTS WRAP
BY WILLIAM HATHAWAY, JR.
PHOTOS BY WANNY MANASSE
This past weekend, the annual League Cup for the Major League Soccer league took place in Harrison. The New York Red Bulls played one of the most exciting games of the season against a tough Toronto FC squad. Defense was the name of the game, and after regular time ended at 0-0, it came down to penalty kicks. Unfortunately, the once hot Red Bulls came up short, losing the penalties 5-4.
In the shootout session, Lewis Morgan scored first for the Red Bulls to make it 1-0. Toronto then suffered a miss from Lorenzo Insigne, and NY went up 2-0 on a Dante Vanzeir goal. FC got their first tally from Matthew Longstaff to cut the lead to 2-1.
Wiki Carmona put the Red Bulls up 3-1, which was answered by FC’s Kosi Thompson, making it 3-2. The Red Bulls’ Elias Manoel put his team up 4-2, but NY would go cold from there. Toronto got successful kicks from Derrick Etienne, Jr., John Osorio, and Shane O’Neill to make it 5-4 in their favor.
In other sports, the City of Orange and Orange Public Library teamed up with the Soccer Goals For Kids organization on a community event. The local organization gave out gently used soccer cleats to the youth of Orange, who got a chance to sign up for a library card.
Wanny Manasse, Soleille Manasse, Alyssa Manasse and Brian Manasse all head up the Soccer Goals organization. Wanny said, “This was a great event, and it was the very first opportunity that Soccer For Kids hosted in Orange, giving out a total of 100 soccer cleats.”
Alyssa, a sophomore at Rutgers Prep., said of the event that she was excited and happy for the program, while founder of the Soccer For Kids program Soleille, who is a student at Seton Hall University, said soccer has been part of her life since the age of four.
Finally, the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team secured a Gold medal in the team event. With the win, Simone Biles now holds the record of having more medals than any other American woman in Olympic gymnastics with eight.
