Cats Defeat Dogs on Turf

Darrell Beaupre
On Wednesday, we saw, yet again, another beautiful day.  It was a sunny afternoon in the 60s.  Again, we were on the turf, but determined to not lose or tie, as have been the majority of games at home on the turf.
 
In the opening minutes, we dominated the play with nice crisp passes and kept the ball down in the Huskies’ defensive end.  We knew that to score we had to shoot, so we shot.  Alvaro Olivo was the first one to get us moving in that direction, and then he was followed up by Simon Nowlin, Ian Surgenor, and Will Sewell.
 
At the six-minute mark, Alvaro took a long shot on goal from outside the box.  The keeper got a hand on it and deflected it out to an awaiting Ryder Perry.  Ryder deftly settled the ball and popped it into the net by the post.  A minute later, Ian controlled a pass up to him from our defense.  He sent a pass inside to Alvaro.  Alvero, trapped the ball, deked the keeper, and sent a finesse shot in for number two.  Three minutes on and Ryder passed the ball up to Ian in the middle.  Ian shifted it over to Will and Will kicked it inside by the post.  After only ten minutes, we were up by three.
 
Our back line of Michael Jung, Jacob Hebbel, Aiden Bean, and Eric Chung, all played solid defense.  They kept Bleyton Hopps-Thompson bored in the goal.  The first time Bleyton picked up the ball was eleven minutes in when he retrieved a long pass that crossed the end-line.  His first real play was when he shut down a long cross with eighteen minutes left in the half.  Cho Man Bian and Sebastian Keen also had excellent defensive plays and kept NHS out of our end.  At midfield, we saw great hustle from Devon LeBlanc, Matt Fussteig, and Mikey Winham.  While racing in to control the ball, Mikey kept up his own sports commentary, which kept us amused.  Finn Bunk and Angus Spence also played solidly at midfield and had their opportunities to score.  The NHS proved to be very talented in the net.
 
Then with six minutes left in the half, NHS got behind our defensive line on a dump-and-run offensive.  They got in close with a one-on-one and ended their scoreless-ness.  When the whistle sounded at the half, we were up 3-1.
 
During our break, Coach pointed out that we had an outstanding first twenty minutes or so, but, unfortunately, the second twenty were a bit lackluster.  We weren’t playing as intensely as we had been.  He was happy that we were ahead and stressed the need to remain so, but our passing, running, and demeanor had become unimpressive.  He wanted to begin the second half as we had the first.  So, we did.
 
Two minutes into the second half, Ian trapped the ball at the top of the box with his back to the keeper.  He spun around and sent the shot into the back corner.  It was a great start to the half.  Unfortunately for us, the Huskies also had their eyes on the scoreboard.  They had seen how effective their dump-and-run had been in the first, so they tried it again and claimed the same result.  If anything, this drove home the need for us to keep up the pressure.  We made their goalkeeper work hard and he rewarded our attempts with some impressive saves.
 
By the end of the game, the only goals that were scored in the second half happened in the first few minutes; however, we had been happy to see shots from players like Cho Man, Aiden, and Jacob Hebbel who usually spend their time well inside our defensive end.  All-in-all, it was a fun game and well played by both squads.
 
We face off against Exeter this Saturday at home on the turf at 2:30.
Back