caption, page 12:

Dribbles
Woodstock Academy’s Noah Page dribbles the ball against East Lyme’s Jon Northcutt (14) in a 3-2 loss to the Vikings last week. Photo by Marc Allard.





Possible tie slips
away from boys'
soccer team
Woodstock Academy boys’ soccer coach Paul Rearden wanted to put a little fire in striker Eric Phongsa’s belly.
Rearden took his leading scorer out late in the first half after seeing him looking a little tired on the field against East Lyme last week.
He kept him there until midway through the second half.
“I just left him sitting there, thinking about what I said, and maybe it would get his blood boiling a little bit more,” Rearden said. It worked.
The junior scored two second half goals to bring the Centaurs even in the second half.
Unfortunately as their luck would have it this season, it wasn’t enough and a late goal lifted East Lyme to a 3-2 victory.
The loss dropped the Centaurs to 1-8 on the season, 0-4 in ECC Division I.
East Lyme struck twice in the first half.
Ethan Stewart scored the first goal for the Vikings halfway through the first half off an assist from Kurt Mahlke.
With just under 10 minutes to play in the half, East Lyme made it 2-0 when Jon Northcutt put home a ball off a corner from Evan Kluge.
“It was a strange start,” Rearden said. “The last few games, we have been good at anticipating things and getting to the ball first. It seemed like we were questioning ourselves. As the half went on, it got a little better. By the end of the half, I thought we were nearly there.”
But finishing at the net, as it has been all season, was a problem.
The Centaurs have 15 goals this season, but eight came in a win against New London. Put that together and they average less than a goal a match.
What followed in the second half made Rearden much happier.
His Centaurs played perhaps their best half of soccer of the season thus far.
Phongsa kicked it into gear when Rearden put him back in.
“I told him to go out there and give it everything you got,” Rearden said. “And in fairness to him, he worked as hard as I’ve ever seen him and got rewarded.”
Phongsa scored two second half goals to tie the game.
He took a through ball from Logan Talbot and went around the East Lyme keeper to get Woodstock Academy on the board.
The second was more individual effort as he stole a ball with six minutes to play and again beat the keeper to tie the match.
But with 46 seconds left, Woodstock Academy was awarded a free kick following an East Lyme foul.
The free kick didn’t reach midfield. It didn’t reach the half and came back in faster than it left. Stewart got a through ball from a teammate and scored his second goal of the game.
“It was one of those times especially when it’s that late in the game where you get the second goal and tie it up that late and coming off the field, with a 2-2 tie, would taste and feel like a victory. You can carry that into the next match. So to have happen what happened, it’s cruel,” Rearden said.
Fortunately for the Centaurs, Rearden said they could glean some positives from it as they felt like just playing East Lyme close was an improvement.
Rearden was hoping to wash the taste from his team’s mouths with a good effort against Coginchaug later in the week.
The match was postponed by weather.
The postponement of the game (it had not been rescheduled at yet at press time) meant the Centaurs have nine days off without a match before playing Auburn at 4 p.m. Oct. 18.
“We just have to keep the spirits up in practice,” Rearden said. “Keep the pace of the practices up because with the break in games, we don’t want them to lose the sharpness.  We have a decent JV team so maybe we can scrimmage them to keep (the varsity’s) legs going.”
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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