Goals don’t come easily – if ever – against Olean 1854 FC, the city’s first-year men’s amateur soccer team.
In Buffalo & District Soccer League 2nd Division play, Olean hasn’t allowed a goal since its first match of the year, a 1-1 tie with West Seneca FC. Since then, it rattled off six shutout victories in a row until Sunday’s contest at FK Bosna in Lackawanna, a 2-0 loss, its first setback of the season.
Olean is also 2-0 in the Wood Cup, allowing just one goal in each of its victories in the league’s concurrent season-long tournament of 2nd and 3rd division teams.
Daemen College goalkeeper Jarrett Lecceadone, a Randolph graduate, anchors that defense, but with help from two experienced defensemen in front of him: St. Bonaventure men’s soccer assistant coach Ryan Arvin and Steve DeGroff, an Allegany native who coached the last four seasons at Salamanca High School.
“That has been key for us,” said Olean manager Mike Martel. “We’ve been very strong defensively, we have the veteran duo of Steve DeGroff and Ryan Arvin, they kind of anchor our back line there. They’ve got some experience behind them. Jarrett has of course been very strong in the goal … he’s been active in the goal. So our defensive unit has really done a good job for us.”
Crucially, Martel added, Lecceadone knows how to stay active even when he’s not called upon to stop a barrage of shots.
“Goalies are different in that they’re not constantly moving,” Lecceadone said. “The better goalies are ones that can be idle for 20 minutes but then when they need to come up, they’re in the game and they’re in tune with the game. That’s what good goalies can do and he’s able to do that. So that’s good for him, and I think this experience is just helping him to take back to the fall when he plays for his college team again. It’s just helping him so much, playing with these guys.”
As a freshman at D-II Daemen last spring, Lecceadone played in nine games, starting five with a 2-3 record. He had a 2.38 goals-against average and stopped 68.2 percent of shots, the team’s best save percentage among three keepers.
Still, as the Wildcats finished the year 7-11, Lecceadone came away thinking he had much to improve on.
“It was a good learning experience,” he said. “It wasn’t fantastic. You would hope that in your first year you can go up and kind of be an all-star and just go up and make a name for yourself right off the bat. It didn’t exactly go like that for me.
“I didn’t do a whole lot of things fantastically. I didn’t exactly do horrible (either). But I did get to play quite bit, and it was a good start. “
As for this summer, the goalie was all smiles after Olean’s last home game, a 10-0 victory over Clarence last Sunday. Lecceadone said he tried out for the Olean 1854 FC after player/coach Pete Coate, who he previously played one men’s league game with, asked him. He noted he enjoys playing with Arvin, DeGroff and Tony Passerino, all vocal players on defense.
“It’s been pretty nice,” he said of Olean 1854 FC. “Even though if some fans are watching the game, they might think, ‘Oh, Jarrett’s not really doing a whole lot,’ I’m working with Ryan Arvin in front of me and he’s coaching over at St. Bonaventure so he’s back there telling me things, like what I need to work on. So that’s good. We’re moving the ball around like we should be and I’m getting good touches which is something I’ve needed to work on. It’s nice to be able to work on some stuff like that.”
