With the volleyball and field hockey tournaments poised to crown sectional champions tomorrow, the wait has seemed exceptionally long to get the boys soccer tournament underway. But the day is finally here with Xaverian and Durfee set to tussle in the Hawk Bowl in Division 1, while Westwood heads over to Pembroke against the sectional finalists from a year ago in Division 3.
Of the four area squads to qualify for the postseason, only Herget Division champion Walpole avoided a preliminary round contest, but they will open their Division 2 South campaign on the road tomorrow in Kingston against Silver Lake. Dedham, also in Division 2, would only face the Rebels should each reach the finals and opens tomorrow afternoon with Bishop Feehan of Attleboro.
Fresh off a Herget Division crown and a trip to the sectional semifinals a year ago with a talented attacking squad returning, WALPOLE went out and defended its title finishing four points clear of Natick to earn the No. 9 seed.
They face a No. 8 Silver Lake squad that lost to Hingham 1-0 in the season finale with the Patriot League Keenan Division title on the line, snapping a 7-0-1 string.
The Lakers are a strong defensive unit that only conceded 14 goals on the season with Nick Hanss in goal. It remains to be seen whether or not the Rebels will be able to field their best attack as Davis Butts figures to be a game-time decision with an ankle injury. Even without Butts, the Rebels have a potent attack with Mike Quintanilla leading the Herget Division with 14 goals on the season. David Hoag in the midfield has also shown the ability to push forward and fill the net as the Rebels scored 39 goals in 18 games.
“At this point we’re concerned about ourselves and we’ll see if we can get them thinking about us when we get down there,” said Rebels coach Lee Delaney. “We’ll play our game, and if we can do that I like our chances. We’ll match up with them when the whistle sounds.”
Defensively, Mike Freiberger is a veteran sweeper but is also banged up but figures to play, and around him a steady group has formed with J.P. Lawton, Alan Garry and Kyle Meredith.
For managing to get through the rigors of the Bay State Conference and two non-leaguers with a .500 mark, No. 18 DEDHAM earned a trip to Attleboro for a tilt with No. 15 Bishop Feehan for a preliminary round contest in Division 2 South on Saturday with the winner earning a Monday date with No. 2 Medfield, winners of the Tri-Valley League. The two squads will have a degree of familiarity between them as the Marauders took a 3-1 decision in the same round two years ago.
The Shamrocks (10-6-2) won the Eastern Athletic Conference with a 4-1-1 mark, a point better than Bishop Stang, which resides on the other side of the bracket. Their seed slipped over the final week-plus of the season closing 1-3, with a 2-1 loss to Walpole on Oct. 25 starting that run.
Like many teams, including Dedham, Bishop Feehan utilizes a 4-4-2 with a stopper and sweeper in the back. According to Marauders coach Paul Podolski, the Shamrocks will look to attack down the flanks, which will put pressure on outside midfielders Kyle Sharpe and Michael McFarland.
“We understand what they are going to try to do, we’re just hoping we can counteract,” said Dedham coach Paul Podolski. “They’re going to be able to build up we think and hopefully we can be strong in the defensive third.”
Scott Murphy has been a rock in goal for the Marauders despite no prior experience entering this campaign, allowing 31 goals over the 18 games and recorded six shutouts, including a 1-0 win over Weymouth and a 0-0 draw with Walpole that secured a spot in the postseason.
The Dedham defense has been anchored by sweeper Pat Bligh while Brian Chin has done just about everything from his stopper position and finished tied for third on the team in scoring with eight points (2 goals, 6 assists).
Central midfielder Rory O’Hanlon led the Marauders with four goals and 14 assists while Alvaro DelaPuente paced the team with seven goals. Being able to generate a sustained offensive attack is one of the biggest concerns for Podolski.
Despite having qualified in each of the past three years, this group of Shamrocks has never won a playoff game, losing in the preliminary round in each of the past two seasons and in the first round before that.
Like Dedham up in Division 2, another area team that has been getting needed results down the stretch has been WESTWOOD, which squeaked into the Division 3 South draw by going 3-0-1 to finish at 7-7-4 and taking the No. 20 seed. They will face No. 13 Pembroke, the defending finalists from a year ago. The Titans ripped through the Patriot League Fisher Division at 9-1, but was just 1-5 in their crossover games against the more highly regarded Keenan Division, and finished second to Hanover. The win came against Walpole’s first round opponent, Silver Lake – who the Titans also defeated in a non-league game. On the turf at Pembroke High, the Titans were just 4-3.
Pembroke utilizes a 4-4-2 system, similar to the Wolverines, and much of their attack is generated through Matt Ford in the midfield. The Westwood defense, which improved from the midpoint of the season with the return of Ries McQuillan and Myles McDonough, will need to be aware of forwards Vlad Greenfield and Chris Savoia (8 goals). Ford likes to go wide to Chris Waterford, who had seven goals and seven assists.
The game figures to be low scoring as Pembroke scored 33 goals, with a 4-0 win over Middleboro being the high-water mark. The most they conceded in any game was in a 3-2 loss to Barnstable in the season-opener. Steve Allen led the Patriot League with a 0.67 GAA as the Titans held teams scoreless in 11 of their 20 games.
Westwood has had plenty of trouble scoring this year with just 18 goals from 18 games with James Strong accounting for nine and Omar Hadzipasic popping in four. James Laughlin had six shutouts and yielded 1.33 GAA.
“We’re going to try to not allow them to play their game and cause all sorts of havoc,” said Westwood coach Eladio Sanchez. “We don’t want to play the air ball with them because that’s when they become dangerous, try to bring the ball down to the feet and pass, possession, which I think has been one of our strengths in the second half (of the season).”
The winner gets a bit of a gift being drawn against No. 4 Holbrook of the lightly thought of Mayflower League in a first round matchup on Sunday.
A late slide by XAVERIAN that saw them go 1-1-3 to close out the season saw the Hawks slip to No. 15 and host a preliminary round game today against No. 18 Durfee (7-5-6) with the winner getting No. 2 New Bedford on Sunday.
While the Hawks staggered down the stretch, they closed with a convincing win over Franklin, with Robby Stack scoring both goals shortly after returning from injury, and they have had a strong week of practice according to coach Gary Bowers.
Stack led the Hawks offensively with 10 goals while offensive-minded stopper Paul Dupre added six goals and four assists and Greg Stokinger, who like Stack has missed some time to injury, added four goals and three assists. The Hawks will be without James Vickery to a groin injury.
A combination of the injuries and having been assured of qualifying for quite some time did let the Hawks experiment with different bodies in different places. One of the pleasant finds has been the play of Ian Logie.
The strength of the Hawks has been their defense and Evan Polanik in goal, who conceded 20 goals in 17 games with four shutouts. The Hawks defensive unit of Norwood’s Ben Weidenaar, Ben Langhauser, Dedham’s Conor Fitzgerald and Dupre have allowed more than two goals in just one game this season, a 3-2 loss at St. John’s of Shrewsbury. Outside of Dupre because of his ability on set pieces, they largely toil in anonymity because of their consistency.
The Hilltoppers finished last in the Big 3, going 0-3-1 and were outscored by No. 2 New Bedford and No. 10 Brockton 12-4 over the four games. Durfee earned a split with Dedham’s opponent Bishop Feehan.
“They are a hard working flooding defense type of team, that will come at you with some doubles and triples whenever they get that opportunity,” said Bowers. “We’ve been working on moving the ball quickly and letting the ball do some work for us.”
The teams share Brockton and Attleboro as common opponents with the Hawks splitting with the Boxers and winning their only meeting with the Blue Bombardiers, while Durfee was 0-1-1 against Brockton and 1-0-1 against Attleboro.
The Hilltoppers attack is led by Aaron DeMello and Ruben Rezendes, while their primary goalkeeper is Mike Janeiro.
