In the wake of its humbling shutout loss to the Bedford High Bulldogs on that opponent’s home field early last week, the Londonderry High School boys’ soccer squad found itself in the midst of a three-game losing skid which had dragged its record down below the .500 mark to 3-4.
And those facts made coach Todd Ellis’ team’s big annual Mack Plaque match against the arch-rival Pinkerton Academy Astros at LHS over the weekend even more important than it normally is.
The Lancers absorbed their third defeat in a row – all shutouts – with a 6-0 loss at the hands of the tough Bedford bunch on the road last Tuesday, Sept. 18.
The hosts netted two goals in the first half and then added four more in the second in handing the Lancers – who had won three games in a row before beginning their three-game losing skein – a pasting.
LHS goalie Alex Hufford (four saves) and Colby DiMaggio (seven) combined to turn away nearly a dozen Bedford shots and faced a total of 17 blasts between them. Londonderry put just four kicks on the Bulldogs’ cage.
“We were competitive with Bedford in the first half, and they just took over in the second,” said LHS coach Ellis. “Central and Bedford showed us where the bar is in Division I, and what we have to work toward. We now have a stretch of competitive games in front of us, and the challenge is what are we going to do with them.”
In facing off with 1983 LHS graduate Kerry Boles’ struggling and injury-addled Pinkerton contingent in the aforementioned Mack match in Londonderry on the afternoon of Saturday the 22nd, coach Ellis’ crew was in real need of a win which would place it back on track.
The Lancers accomplished that with a tough and hard-fought 2-1 victory, but the match was not without controversy.
PA leader Boles felt his Astros were pretty mistake-prone in that loss, but what drew Boles’ ire most was the game officials who he felt lost control of the game to the academy squad’s detriment.
Pinkerton was forced to play without standout Hunter Rathburn due to an injury, so the Astros didn’t enjoy much roster depth. And when the game was in its final minutes and the academy side was seeking the elusive tying goal, it didn’t have the strength to net that equalizer.
“I expected physical (play) but I didn’t expect dirty,” said Boles. “We don’t have a lot of depth right now, and playing 13 against 11 isn’t something we could do. During the last 10 minutes Londonderry took over because we were gassed.”
The Lancers netted the only goal of the first half with 8:41 to go when Keith Fletcher sailed a shot from about 30 yards out into the upper-right corner of the Pinkerton net, just over the leap of PA goalie Max Fairbank.
That advantage stood up until a little less than five minutes were gone in the second half when Astro Alex Rust was set up by teammate Henry Andrews for the tying tally.
And the match score remained at 1-1 for about seven minutes before the Lancers potted what wound up being the winning goal when Tyler VanAvery scored a downright strange marker.
The Lancer took a direct kick from the right wing in the Pinkerton zone, with the ball hitting PA goalie Fairbank in the knee, clanging off the right post of his net, and bounding back and hitting his body before rolling into the net.
That would be it on the scoring, but the play became more aggressive and unruly with the officials threatening to react to physical play but not really doing so.
There were 15 shots on net in the second half, with the victorious Lancers bashing eight and PA notching seven. All in all, Fairbank finished with 11 total saves and Londonderry’s Hufford notching 10.
Following the match, Lancer mentor Ellis had numerous reasons to be pleased with the intestinal fortitude and hard work his athletes had shown in ending their losing streak.
“It was a hard-fought game on both sides. Both teams had points where they controlled play, but neither side controlled play all the way,” said Ellis. “We did what we had to to win the match today. Every game is going to be a dog-fight the rest of the way, and we managed to win it today.”
With that success still close by in its rear-view mirror, the Londonderry crew looked at a Monday road match against Nashua South (5-3) in the Gate City.
And those two contingents battled their way to a scoreless tie in that contest.