The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Torrington dominant early in opening win vs. Wolcott
TORRINGTON — Torrington’s boys soccer team played its opener just the way it wanted to for all but the last two minutes of a 3-2 win over Wolcott Thursday evening at the Robert H. Frost Sports Complex.
“The final score was not indicative of the game,” said Coach Mike Fritch, whose Red Raiders dazzled in the rain for a 3-0 lead until the 38th minute of the second half.
In a dominant performance for 78 minutes, Torrington got its first goal from Xavier Rodas 15 minutes into the game, delayed for half an hour by a thunder storm.
Rodas wove in from the left side and booted a ball back into the left corner of the Eagles’ net.
Two minutes later, Janos Herczeg banged a shot from 10 yards out, deflecting slightly off Wolcott goalie Jarren Barnes into the right corner.
The most convincing goal of all came 11 minutes into the second half when Barnes batted away a long shot from senior captain Brett Stater; Brandon Monteiro banged another off Barnes from closer in; and Neyger Atariguana picked up the rebound 10 yards
to the right for the goal.
“We passed well; we got good numbers forward; and we used each other,” said Roadas.
“We had good communication and high energy,” added Herczeg.
“And we possessed it well,” said Atariguana.
It was all true until those
final two minutes.
“We had a couple of kids dinged, so I took people out to protect them from getting injured more,” said Coach Fritch. “Then we fell asleep.”
In the second half’s 38th minute, Wolcott’s Nate Goddard stunned the Raiders with one goal. A minute later, Chris LeBeau floored them with another.
“We were definitely outmanned,” said Wolcott
coach Bryan Plano. “We had a couple of injuries and a few more playing hurt. But Chris LeBeau played the game of his life on defense and we made it exciting.”
Despite the final scare, Raider Coach Fritch was happy.
“We looked good scoring; we used the wide flanks,” he said. “We miss (last year’s scoring star) Naseem Thompson, but I thing it
means more people are stepping up to score now.
“Naugatuck is still the team to beat, but, after that, the NVL is wide open; a lot of teams lost a lot of players”