Photo Kevin Mullaney The Nauset boys rise to the occasion— in pyramid formation, no less — to defeat Barnstable Friday afternoon.
Photos Kevin Mullaney The Nauset boys know how to get ahead in soccer.
Warriors take ACL lead
Banner Daily Update posted Thurs. Oct. 11
By Kevin Mullaney Banner Correspondent
Goals by senior forward Sean Brown and junior midfielder Michael Quigley lifted the Nauset High School boys soccer team to a 2-0 win over Barnstable on Friday afternoon in North Eastham. The victory improves the Warriors’ record to a league-leading 8-1-1 as they head to Marshfield for a showdown. Marshfield, a Div. 1 school, is the best opponent on their schedule.
“We’re having a difficult time finishing teams off,” said Nauset coach John McCully. “2-0 is a good result.” The Warriors dominated the game, allowing Barnstable only one shot on net. Brown scored his goal early in the game and it remained 1-0 until Quigley scored 10 minutes into the second half. This follows Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Whitman-Hanson and Monday’s 1-0 win over Falmouth. “We’ve dominated most opponents,” McCully said, adding, “only one goal is one mistake from a tie game.” Junior midfielder Nate Rice scored 15 minutes in against Whitman-Hanson, assisted by Brown, and Ben Altneu scored midway through the first half on a direct kick to beat Falmouth. Junior goalkeeper Brett Conrad made two saves in each. Friday’s win was Conrad’s eighth shutout in a row. He leads the Atlantic Coast League, having given up only two goals in 10 games.
Coach McCully said his back five defenders are the key to the team right now, referring to goalie Conrad, senior Ross Johnson, juniors Chris McEnaney and Paul Wallace and Altneu, a freshman. “They’re not even giving up good looks [at the goal]. They’re shutting the door on them,” McCully said. Up front, senior Sean Brown and junior Paul Brazil are key forwards. Junior forward Gabe Bicker is out with a broken leg.
“We’ve got to be better in the final one-third of the field,” McCully said. “We have a lot of away games left, all league games. At this stage I couldn’t be happier, being one point away from qualifying [for the tourney]. That’s our number one priority,” he said. “We’re young. We start only three seniors,” he said, giving a glimpse of what is to come next year. “Hopefully we go deeper into the tournament this year.”
Oct 11th, 2007
