- Details
- Category: Past Issues
Boys'
roundup
Marianapolis
Varsity Soccer
Marianapolis 1 MacDuffie 0
Oct. 17: The boys’ varsity soccer team started sluggishly on the steppes of Granby, Mass., as they played their first game at MacDuffie’s new campus, a sprawling lowland nestled in the heart of the Connecticut River Valley.
Junior striker Alex Eun finally found the back of the old onion bag with 12 minutes left as Marianapolis snuck away with the victory. After another slow start the Knights were given a wee bit of a pep talk at the half and responded with better overall hustle but still failed to score until Eun from Korea managed to flick a beautifully placed header, off a Rafal Lachcik super long throw, past the diving Mustang keeper.
Senior goalie Jose Rodriguez posted his fourth shutout of the season with three spectacular saves. In the second half the Knights dominated play but simply could not score. The major upside of the game was that the Knights did not fall behind. Junior stopper Eric Bordua and senior sweeper Hayden Yaworski shut down the MacDuffie attack while senior midfielder Sam Elizondo controlled the midfield with his great work rate and hustle. The team improved to 7-2-2 overall and 4-1-1 in WNEPSSA.
Pomfret School
Pomfret 3 Marianapolis 0
Oct. 26: The Pomfret boys hosted the 9-2-2 Marianapolis team on its home field for its second home game on the grass in almost a month. Tim Haggerty played a flawless game as he scored the hat trick giving him 12 goals on the season. Drew Cobin had two assists, as did Charlie Gruner. Even AJ had another one of his patented long ball flick on style assist. The defense was tough when it had to be as the Marianapolis team was the quick strike variety—yet the backs—Jack Nicholson, Max King, John Cunningham, and Tom Trogele were up to the challenge. They limited the Knights to just three shots on goal, though AJ was quick off his line snuffing out any long ball tactics yet again.
The play started out with aggressiveness, and Pomfret worked the ball but still are in the process of adjusting back to grass after two games on turf. The slightly wet conditions made the middle tough for the likes of Charlie Gruner and Harrison Chase. The pressure applied by the Pomfret outside backs was fierce and just missing on a few passes and some great play by Jose Gonzalez in the Marianapolis nets kept Pomfret out for the first half.
The middle of the field was clogged with five backs in the Marianapolis middle. This meant pushing the outside was the way to go. Tim and Drew started to open up more and more space with the diagonal runs and both Jack and Tom served some nice diagonal balls to the outside wing halves of Lucas Gillespie, Diego Briones, Shandy Chen and Chris Alves. They turned the corner and headed up field with the ball. It was on one such time that Chris fired the ball across, and it grazed the cross bar before it floated over the heads on the other side of the field. This created a great many corners as Pomfret earned 10 on the day. It is an area we need to work on since we did not covert any of them despite some nice serves by Charlie and JJ Lee—playing significant minutes today. We had Lucas step in and play middle to give Charlie a rest and then did the same with the rotation with Harrison and Drew. Each just picks up the slack. The closest we came to a goal was off a JJ serve in which Charlie headed it just within the goalie’s diving save. There were several other pretty opportunities in the half. Harrison left fly on a nice crossing ball at the top of the 18 that sailed side and Diego had a nice cross that was knocked aside for a corner.
Though there were chances, we still needed to make better finishes and control the ball in space. The second half started well that way, as it was clear that Pomfret was in full attack mode. At the half Coach Burke calmed the troops down, as they were getting a little emotional and need to think more clearly. Pomfret more than doubled the shots in the second half, and then finally the breakthrough came. At the 22 minute mark AJ lofted a punt down field that was flicked on by Drew—who again had some really nice opportunities in close today—and Tim just used speed to turn the corner on the two-sweeper system. The goalie came out but Tim squared his shoulders and finished. The next goal came only a few minutes later as Charlie fed Drew a ball near mid-field and Drew turned and put the ball through to Tim who again placed the ball bottom left. Then Marianapolis put all their forwards up front, and we countered with Remy Hatfield marking up their most dangerous forward. The fresh legs helped as Remy put the ball to Charlie, and he split the defense as Tim once again turned on the jets and playing with his back to the goal turned and fired to the lower left. It was a nice combination of passing. Then Pomfret ran out the clock concluding with the shut out. This defense takes great pride in how they play and how they have gelled together.
The team is 7-1 in the WNEPSSA league and 9-1 overall.