Sports
Hard Fought Boys’ JV Soccer Season
Sports
Hard Fought Boys’ JV Soccer Season
By Jack Shuster
As the boys’ Junior Varsity season comes to a close, the team has a lot to look back on and be proud of. The team's first win came on September 5th in their season opener at Milton. The final score was 12-0. Proceeding that game, the team had three straight hard fought games losing to Needham, Walpole and Newton North but refused to give up. Then came the match against Framingham.
Natick and Framingham are longtime rivals. The two teams were scheduled to square up at Framingham High School early in the season. Natick came out like a racehorse. Grady Boudreau scored a goal in the first 20 minutes assisted by Jack Shuster. About 15 minutes after that, Dan Hartman took a rip from the 18 yard box and it found the back of the net assisted by Shuster as well. Natick had a 2-0 lead going into halftime.
The 2nd half started out with Natick dominating time of possession. Then, Framingham made a huge push. There was about a 6 minute spurt where Framingham was averaging 3 shots on goal per minute. Sam Katzman came up huge stopping every shot during Framingham’s onslaught. About 10 minutes later Framingham scored on a deflection right in front of the 6 yard box. Not too long after that Framingham scored another goal from about 15 yards out. It was a missile of a shot. The game ended in a 2-2 tie.
Grady Boudreau and Dan Hartman were outstanding goal scorers for the Redhawks in front of a strong defense led by Rob Langan, Pat McQuillen and Jason Chase. Toni Precci and Kaeden Berry created chances in the mid-field for the 5 up top to score as many goals as possible. The team's coach Ivor Ford used specific tactics and strategy to help ball movement and add opportunities for his team to succeed.
With a team record of 5-3-6 and 4 games left to play, one including a rematch against Framingham on Tuesday, September 24th, there is still a lot to look forward to towards the end of the boys’ Junior Varsity soccer season.