Rybak, Dada both help Rams win historic title

LYNN – It can safely be said that the eight minutes that Classical backliner Greg Rybak spent in the Rams’ net Thursday might have been the longest in his life thus far.And that might include the time he’s spent on the mound while playing baseball for the Rams, too.Rybak volunteered for goalkeeper duty when Dammy Dada fell to the ground and felt his shoulder go dead, figuring his length would fill the net better, and his aggressiveness would carry the day.”I landed on (the shoulder) wrong,” Dada said, “and felt it go dead for a minute. But it got better fast, and when it did, I wanted to go back in.”The problem is he couldn’t ? not until someone from English kicked the ball out of bounds. And that kept not happening.”I figured,” said Rybak, “that the next corner kick, or something, out I’d come and he’d go back in.”Just Rybak’s luck, then, that the teams spent one of the longest stretches of sustained action in the game kicking the ball up and down the field.Rybak was equal to the task, though. He made two saves. They were two very unorthodox saves too, scooping the ball up like he was a digger in volleyball and punching it back out.”I didn’t want to take any chances,” he said, “I just wanted to play it safe.”Meanwhile, Dada, standing ready on the sidelines, was growing increasingly nervous and agitated every time English spent too much time in the Classical end of the field.Finally, eight minutes later, the action stopped and Dada could sprint back onto the field.And thus, Rybak can truly say he backboned the Rams to their first league soccer title of any kind since the mid-1970s, because he contributed to the 2-0 shutout his team hung on English to win the Northeastern Conference/South crown.”This is the perfect way to end our careers at Classical,” Dada said. “For us seniors, going out by winning a league title, and beating English ? this feels so good.””The thing is,” said Rybak, “in our careers at Classical, we’ve never lost to English (the teams played to a 1-1 tie the first time around). It would have been awful losing to them tonight, with all this on the line.”Rybak stands well over six feet and looks more like a linebacker and a power forward than a soccer player. He doesn’t play basketball because, as he puts it, “I have no lift. I can’t get off the ground.”And it’s safe to say that football coach Tim Phelps would love to have Rybak standing at middle linebacker tonight when Classical lines up against Revere. But Phelps can be secure in the knowledge that although Rybak doesn’t play linebacker, he plays like a linebacker. He may be short on the slickness and smoothness, and will never be mistaken for Pele out there. What he has is heart and tenacity.”That’s the way I am,” he says, “I play aggressive from the start of the game to the finish. I wish everybody played that way.”I try to be intimidating very early.”Both Dada and Rybak, both seniors, feel good about the fact that the Rams – 7-0-3 in the NEC/South – achieved success the year after star scorer Miguel Castro graduated.”I think we were a better rounded team,” said Rybak, a captain. “In fact, I really think we could have played better.””It’s good to have that one great scorer,” said Dada, “but this was a team too. We all worked very hard, and everyone on the team wanted to win it for the seniors who were playing their last regular-season game.”