First-half goal carries Lancers

Tate Simpson’s first-half strike was the difference as Gilmour edged a 1-0 win Aug. 27 over visiting Perry.

The Lancers (2-0) were dangerous in the opening 40 on counterattacks and possessed with precision after halftime.

Things got tedious on a set piece late for the Pirates (0-1), but Gilmour saw out the clean sheet and the result, its first win over Perry since 2015.

“We practice that all the time, and I’m a defense coach first,” Lancers coach Joe Ciuni said. “Hopefully, we’re solid in the back, and that counterattack is what we rely on quite a bit. I think we played it really well. When you have a runner

THE SCORE GILMOUR 1, PERRY 0

like Alexander Beedles up top, you just let him go, right? And then you counterattack like that.

“(Perry goalkeeper Isaac Balistreri) played tremendous. Hat’s off to him. He had some really good saves. He was dangerous back there today — we couldn’t beat him. But we got that one, and that’s all that counted.”

in the 30th minute, Gilmour standout senior goalkeeper Matt Beck played a lofting goal kick into the offensive third. Beedles got a touch in space on the bounce and played off to Simpson, with the senior delivering a quality rightfooted finish for his second goal of the fall.

“Matt obviously, he’s incredible,” Simpson said. “He boots it like a mile. And Alex touched it back a little bit, and I was just at the right place at the right time.

“It was a hard-fought game. We were able to barely squeeze by. We played like a team. We played really well today. I was happy we could get a good result at the end.”

The match featured just five shots on target. Lancers midfielder Connor Underwood was unlucky with a crossbar rattler in the 11th minute.

Perry, eyeing its fifth win over Gilmour since 2008, got an indirect free kick in the 75th. After a stepover and Ruben Aguilera touch, Zachary Stinchcomb had a right-footed effort turned away by Beck.

“Once we got settled down a little bit, we started to widen out and be able to connect some more passes,” Pirates coach Adam Wilson said. “We controlled the ball a little bit more. We still struggled going forward. Fortunately, we worked on set pieces yesterday in the last hour of practice, and (the 75th minute set piece) was one that we did. It was nice to actually get an effort on goal like that, one of only two the entire game. Yeah, that’s definitely one thing with the group that I have that I expected a little bit more from. “Gilmour played us tough, but in the end, I just think that we beat ourselves going to goal, just not finding feet and not finding good balls, just turning up field and trying to run at three defenders. We just couldn’t do it today.”