An extremely strong season and seemingly legitimate championship hopes fizzled last Saturday, Oct. 28 for the Londonderry High School boys’ soccer team.
The second-seeded Lancers, who came into their Division I quarterfinal-round tournament match with the seventh-ranked Concord High Crimson Tide in Londonderry that day having won five straight games and six of their previous seven, only allowed one goal to that guest. But that was enough for the Tide in a 1-0 decision.
The lone goal of the game came in the 50th minute of play, 10 minutes into the second half.
Londonderry goalie Alex Hufford came up with some 13 saves in keeping his squad in stride with Concord. But the one goal that got through was the difference.
The Concord team controlled much of the first half of the game with some very accurate passing.
The Lancers had bested the Crimson Tide by a 2-0 tally in the regular season meeting between the two contingents at LHS in early September. But the locals weren’t able to vanquish the opponent a second time.
“It’s hard to beat a good team twice in a season,” said LHS coach Todd Ellis. “Concord played with more of an edge today and deserved the result. We generated some chances, especially late, but could not get it past their keeper.”