Soccer team readies for spring season

The Lizards soccer team at Oceanside Labor Day tournament last season.

Herald file photo

After winning their division in the fall, the girls on the Lynbrook East Rockaway Lizards soccer team are back at it again for their spring season.

The team is made up of 13 and 14-year-olds from Lynbrook, East Rockaway and a couple surrounding communities, and coached by Rich Ford, Matt Kaplan and Carlos Ospina. The team’s trainer, Rawle “Ra” Scope, is also back for his second season with the Lizards and likes the family feel of the team.

“I’ve worked with a lot teams throughout Long Island and it’s fair to say that the mentality between the players and parents is so amazing,” Scope said.

Scope said that he worked primarily on fitness with the team last season, but this year he is focusing on the more technical aspects of the game. “Some of them were in decent shape,” Scope said of last season’s team, “but as a whole, the idea was to get them physically ready because when it really came down to the wire it really showed — they weren’t even tired after the game was over.”

This season, Scope said the team is working on how to move intelligently without the ball, use better field vision and being able to read plays. Scope, who owns Achieve Fitness in East Rockaway, played soccer professionally for four years in both Italy and Brazil. He was asked to train the team by Kaplan last year, which he now does once a week.

Ford has been coaching the Lizards for five years and said he never thought that co-coaching his daughter’s soccer team would be this important to him. “It has nothing to do with soccer,” Ford said, “obviously soccer is why we get together, but it’s more like a family and it’s been an incredible experience watching these girls grow up.”

For Scope, teaching the girls skills they can use now will make things easier as they further their playing careers. He wants them to be able to apply their training at the next level, in order to make the transition a bit smoother.

The team practices twice a week at Greis Park and plays its games on Saturdays. Ford said the 15 girls who make up the Lizards have taught him for more than he has taught them during his time as coach. He calls it a “great experience.”

“It’s like you inherit 14 other daughters,” Ford said.