Senior Liam Morrison heads the ball while blocking his opponent. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Goalkeeper and co-captain Tucker Madison blocks a penalty kick during the shootout after double overtime. The Trojans beat St. Joseph Prep, 2-1.
The No.1 seed Bromfield boys soccer team (13-3-2) narrowly avoided elimination from this year’s Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 5 state soccer tournament at the hands of No. 32 St. Joseph Prep (12-1-5) last Sunday, Nov. 6. Bromfield beat the Phoenix at home, 2-1, on penalty kicks and advanced to the next round of this year’s championship.
A Bromfield defeat would have sent shock waves across Division 5. The Trojans have been state champions for three consecutive years. St. Joseph’s MIAA power ranking (1.2689) is half that of Bromfield’s (2.1927), though depressed by the relative weakness of the teams it faced in regular season competition. But the two teams have similar 2022 records, and the scrappy, white-shirted Phoenix came determined to win.
Although Bromfield’s offense dominated the first half, St. Joseph’s defense held firm. Phoenix goalie Nicholas Joannidis had an outstanding game, with nearly a dozen saves, including three Bromfield shots on goal in the final minutes of the first half and a blast from Bromfield’s Eli Labbe with barely two minutes remaining in the second.
It was Ethan Russo who finally found an opening and scored for Bromfield midway through the second half to give the Trojans a 1-0 lead. But that was the Trojans’ last goal of the day. With fewer than four minutes remaining, captain Alex Myles scored what could have been the game-winning goal on an assist by Liam Morrison, but the attack was ruled offside. Then, unwilling to concede victory as the clock ticked down, St. Joseph’s Mario DeOlivera caught Bromfield’s defense off guard and fired a shot from the left past Bromfield goalie Tucker Madison into the net to even the score at 1-1.
In the two 10-minute, sudden-death overtime periods that followed, neither team scored. Bromfield came close, scoring twice only to be ruled offside. At the end of overtime play the score remained 1-1, and the two teams lined up to decide the outcome on 12-yard penalty shots, with the team winning the best of five declared the winner.
Bromfield’s Vasilis Psathas and St. Joseph’s Finn McVeigh were first for their teams and both won their faceoffs against opposing goalies Madison and Joannidis. Sam Secor was second for Bromfield, followed by Theo Bradley, both of whom scored. St. Joseph’s players were not so lucky. Victor Mejia went second for the Phoenix, but missed, sending the ball over the net. Eddie Tumialin was third, but his shot was batted away by Madison, leaving Bromfield with a 3-1 advantage. It was left to Bromfield’s fourth shooter, Brendan Litszwan, to end the contest, which he did with a well-aimed blast past Phoenix goalie Joannidis. With only two shots remaining to St. Joseph, the Trojans’ 4-1 lead was insurmountable, and the blue-shirted Bromfield bench rushed onto the field to celebrate its victory.
“It’s not the way we wanted to play, but the important thing is we got the win and we’re moving on,” Coach Alex Horne said after the game. “I think we weren’t as confident as we should be, being the number one seed going in, and played a little scared. And then once you start missing more and more opportunities, even more pressure starts to mount that we couldn’t handle as a team.” But he said the team had learned a lesson in losing to Gardner on penalty kicks in the Central Massachusetts Athletic Directors Association championship match. “We really focused on them and that certainly showed today,” Horne said.
The Bromfield boys could expect more pressure in its upcoming round of 16 game against No. 16 seed Georgetown at Ayer Shirley on Friday, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m.
