By Chris Paul
The Londonderry High School Boys’ Soccer team added two more shutout victories last week, for their fourth of the season, and headed into the third week with a 4-1 record.
The Lancers’ week started on Tuesday, Sept. 5, after coming off a 1-1 road trip, where they were edged out by Nashua South, but bounced back with a 4-0 win at Portsmouth.
On Tuesday, Londonderry was able to best Salem High School’s Blue Devils by a score of 4-0 by dominating that team on ball possession for much of the 80-minutes of play.
The team scored two unanswered goals in each of half of play.
In the first half, junior Brett McKinnon assisted senior Jacob Nussdorf at 11:31 to give LHS the 1-0 lead.
Eight minutes later, at 19:23 in the first, Aidan Board was able land his first varsity goal by scoring on a penalty kick after Tiago Keyes was fouled in the box heading in for what looked to be a sure goal.
Leading 2-0 to start the second half, it took just a minute for junior Tiago Keyes to make it 3-0 with his first varsity goal. The assist went to senior, Aidan White.
The final score of the game came from Nussdorf , at 47:21, who was assisted by McKinnon.
Lancers’ senior tender, Jason Reilly, made seven saves in the game, while the Salem goalie was kept busy with 13 saves.
Head coach, Todd Ellis, was happy with the win, commenting, “We followed up our Portsmouth game with a better team possession game, and had more players contributing. It was nice to see Aidan and Tiago get their first varsity goals, and our defenders Jason Vogel, Matt Doyle, Aidan Board, Crosby Nolan, Conor Koza, Parker Lewis, and Evan Fortin play roles in preserving the shut out. Jason did a good job in net and made a couple of key stops as well.”
After the win, Londonderry finished the week with another strong performance, beating the Bedford Bulldogs at home on Friday night, 2-0.
The win gave Bedford their second loss of the season, putting them at 2-2 for the season.
McKinnon managed to get both of the Londonderry goals, getting unassisted breakaway goals at 36:54 in the first half and one at 49:53 in the second.
Weather was a factor in the game, with strong downpours ending just before the game started and then rain caused the game to be stopped by the officials 10-minutes into the second half.
Junior keeper, Noah Cello, made five stops for Londonderry, while the Bedford tender made just one save.
Ellis commented after the game, “Bedford is a very talented team and really controlled possession the first 15-minutes. After that we settled in and balanced out the game.”
He added, “Brett scored two great breakaways, the defense played well against a talented offense, and Noah made some great decisions in net. It was still great to see the kids excited about their accomplishment.”
The Lancers were scheduled to play at Keene High School on Tuesday, Sept. 12, followed by a home contest against Dover on Thursday night, Sept. 14, starting at 6 p.m. The Green Wave is currently at 1-2 this season.