Solid Oliver Ames blanks Plymouth North in semifinal
MARSHFIELD >> Oliver Ames must have been looking for a second shot at the senior prom.
The top-seeded Tigers punched their ticket to the Division 2 state finals with a 2-0 win over No. 12 Plymouth North a mere 24 hours after the Oliver Ames girls soccer program also moved to the state finals dance card for the upcoming D2 state championships this weekend.
Oliver Ames improved to 19-1-2 as Luke Churchill scored an unassisted goal in the 19th minute of play. That was all the Tigers needed as their offense controlled the play most of the game and dominated play in their zone in the second half.
Churchill found some open space out front after some nifty footwork, lifting the ball over a slide tackle out near the 30-yard line. After a slight pause as the sophomore forward realized the Eagles’ defense had moved back on their heels, Churchill ripped the twine just inside the left post past a diving goalkeeper Josh Bates for the Eagles.
“We trained Luke, but if you have that — you just go.
The challenge was (the Eagles) were worried about all the other guys and they stuck with them, and it allowed the goal to go through,” said Oliver Ames head coach John Barata about to game’s first tally.
With the Eagles in desperation mode late in the second half, Plymouth North moved some of its offensive firepower to defense as senior captain Kevin Riley slid to the back, but Andrew Martins doubled up the Eagles for the Tigers off a free kick in the 72nd minute to shut the door on the surprising season for Plymouth North (15-4-3).
“At this point, just smash it home we said, but Andrew has been a go-to guy and it’s funny, during the season, everyone is like ‘they are a oneman show,’ but we are not a one-man show,” said Barata. “We have a great plethora of players that can play, we move the ball around, and kudos to (Plymouth North) as they really worked hard at their strategy.”
Bates, a senior captain for Plymouth North, was outstanding in net with numerous highlight reel saves and was very aggressive outside the box to keep the Eagles in things as he was under pressure for most of the contest. The rest of the strategy did not work on defense as the Tigers commanded the offense throughout.
Plymouth North’s last trip to the state semifinals was in 1998, so head coach John Tocci, who played on the only Eagles’ state soccer champion in 1986, and his squad can’t hang their heads about the fantastic playoff run.
“It’s been an incredible four-year journey with those seniors and it’s not just the seniors, which is great. It’s a great core of seniors, Ben Young, Kevin Riley, Brad Sorensen, Dom Sorensen, and Bates was phenomenal,” said Tocci.
“Bates is a kid who wasn’t even a goalie and just said, ‘I’ll play goalie for you.’ Four years later, the kid should be more than just a Patriot League All-Star. Because we are not Hingham or Marshfield, that kid should have been an Eastern Mass AllStar as he kept us in the run and our defense has been lights out. It’s a special group because we have just the right mix.”
Oliver Ames advances to the Division 2 finals to face Hopkinton (19-1-2) at Walpole High on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.