By Chris Paul
After coming off just their third loss of the season, the Londonderry Boys’ Soccer team added two more wins last week and pushed their season record up to an impressive 11-3, with just one week left in the season.
The Lancers were on their home turf for both games last week and in those contests, they were able to blank the Bishop Guertin Cardinals 3-1 followed by a close 1-0 win over the Winnacunnet Warriors.
On Monday, Oct. 9, at LHS, the home squad scored once in the first half and twice in the second for their seventh shutout of the season.
The team’s first goal came at 24:43 in the first when junior Zach Mantegari assisted by fellow junior Brett McKinnon.
About two minutes into the second half, McKinnon added to the lead with an unassisted shot on a breakaway shot taken after a steal from half field.
The final goal came from the Mantegari- McKinnon duo again. McKinnon placed a pass from the right side to Mantegari who was directly in front of the BG tender.
Junior goaltender, Noah Celio, needed to make just three saves behind his Lancer defense, while the BG goalie was busy with 12 saves in the game.
Head coach, Todd Ellis, was happy with his team’s pace, saying, “The team really generated a lot of nice opportunities. Our pace seemed to be a little too much for them, and our defenders did a good job of supporting each other to keep them from even getting a lot of shots off.”
The Londonderry squad got its eleventh win and eighth shutout of the season three nights later, narrowly beating the Winnacunnet Warriors by one goal.
The only goal scored in the very evenly balanced game came from McKinnon at 50:31 in the game.
McKinnon, who factored into every goal last week, scored on a rebound from senior Jake Nussdorf’s shot on goal.
Senior Lancer keeper, Jason Reilly, made three saves to match Winnacunnet’s three saves.
Ellis gave praise to the defense, saying, “We created several good quality chances to increase our lead, however fortunately our team defense kept most of their shots outside the 18.”
He added, Aidan Board, Matt Doyle, Conor Koza, Crosby Nolan, and Reilly, along with the rest of the team, did well to preserve the shutout.
Londonderry closed out the regular season with a game at Windham High School (12-2) on Tuesday, Oct. 17, followed by a home game with Timberlane (1-12-1) on Thursday night Oct. 19, starting at 6 p.m.