Boy’s soccer dropped a 2-0 game to Northern Burlington to begin the 2015 campaign, which made today’s meeting with the Greyhounds even more important as these two Liberty Division rivals squared off in Cinnaminson.
The Pirates could not get anything going on offense, despite 21 shots, and fell 1-0 to the Greyhounds to drop to 5-3-1. Northern Burlington is now 7-3, the program’s best start since 2000.
Cinnaminson dominated play in the first half, sending quite a few shots towards the goal, with just a handful actually reaching goalie Kyle Quigley (4 saves).
“It’s one of those situations where it was 21-11 in shots and their keeper had four saves,” boy’s soccer coach Jay Meile said. “When you take 20-plus shots and over 75 percent of them aren’t on frame and the keeper doesn’t have to make a save, you’re not gonna win many games. Soccer is a funny sport that way.”
“You can out-possess the other team and the other team can win. It’s happened to us before. Unfortunately it’s happened to us again. We’ve also been victorious in games like that before. Holding the ball is one thing; being dangerous with the ball is another thing and today we just weren’t dangerous with the ball at our feet.”
The best scoring chance of the first half for the Pirates came off the foot of Mason Stepnowski, who drilled a cross off the right post. The rebound went to Pat McCarthy, whose ensuing shot sailed high over the crossbar.
Just two minutes later, Mike Reid broke through the defense and put a shot towards the goal, but it sailed wide left.
There was no score at halftime despite the Pirates putting continued pressure on the Greyhounds in their defensive zone.
Less than one minute into the second half, the Pirates had their best scoring chance of the day when Reid broke through the defense again and put a shot on goal, only to be scooped up by Quigley, keeping the game scoreless.
The Greyhounds would score the game’s lone goal with 24:12 left when Wynton Britton found Brad Forman in front of the net, sent him the ball on a beautiful pass, and Forman deposited it for Northern Burlington’s 1-0 lead.
“I think our defense was a little too relaxed,” Meile said. “The ball was dumped in, something we talked about on the scouting report. It’s something they like to do. It was one of those things where we anticipated someone on our team to win the ball or we assumed they weren’t going to be there to win the ball. When you play a good team like NBC, they find a way.”
The Pirates had opportunities in the final 24 minutes of the contest to tie it, but most of their shots sailed wide or high of the goal.
Pirates keeper Mike Deal (5 saves) kept Cinnaminson in the game all afternoon, especially with three minutes left to play when the Greyhounds beat the Pirates defense and put a shot right on goal. Deal scooped the ball and cleared traffic so the Pirates could make a final push to tie.
Time expired with the Greyhounds in possession of the ball as the Pirates fell 1-0, their second shutout loss of the season to Northern Burlington.
Boy’s soccer returns to the field on Thursday, October 8 at 6:30pm for Senior Night under the lights at the football stadium against Pennsauken. Cinnaminson took down Pennsauken 2-1 in overtime earlier this season.
“Our next game is Pennsauken, another division game, and it’s senior night,” Meile said. “If I have to motivate them for senior night, we have to re-evaluate some other problems we must have. We have 11 seniors in the program and the plan is to start all 11 of them.”
“This is my fourth year as head coach and we’ve won all three senior night games so far. It’s something we take pride in. I think we do a nice job of protecting our home field, just unfortunately today we didn’t do it.”
