Raiders to play for MAPL championship
By: Bob Nuse
Both the Princeton Day School and Hun School boys’ soccer teams had moments when they dominated play during their respective state prep tournament semifinals on Wednesday.
But in the end, neither team was able to build on that domination and come away with a win.
PDS dropped its state Prep B semifinal at Montclair Kimberley Academy, 3-1, after jumping out to an early 1-0 lead. Meanwhile, Hun fell at Blair, 1-0, in the state Prep A semifinals.
"We came out playing well at the start and scored early on," said PDS coach Malcolm Murphy, whose team got a goal from David Beard less than three minutes into the game. "With it being their home game and that they have had success in the tournament in recent years, we went in with the intention of going right down their throats at the beginning of the game.
"We put the ball in the goal right away. And then in the next seven or eight minutes, we had a couple more real good chances to score. We just didn’t put the ball in the net."
MKA would get a goal from Mike Amato just before halftime to even the score at 1-1, then two more in the second half to come away with a 3-1 win.
"We probably dominated the first half but we could not come up with that second goal," said Murphy, whose team finished the season with a 6-7-4 record. "They played a better game than we did in the second half. We just didn’t put our goal together in the second half. They got that second goal, which was a brilliant goal, and then it was a pretty even game after that. We had one other good chance to get a goal to tie the game, but we didn’t get it.
"They knocked in a goal late once we had pushed some people up. But that was something we had to do at that point in the game. I thought it was a good, entertaining game and that we battled the whole way."
In Hun’s loss at Blair, Raider coach Chris Kingston felt like his team came out and played well right from the start, but wound up with nothing to show for it.
"The first 15 minutes, we played as well as we have all year," said Kingston, whose team fell to 10-7-2 heading into today’s season finale at Hill. "We possessed the ball, moved it well and got behind the defense. We probably had five good chances to score a goal. But their goalie made a couple nice saves and we shot it over the crossbar.
"At some point, probably about halfway through the first half, Blair started to feel like it was going to be their day. They started to play harder and we tried to counter their physical play by playing less soccer and trying to match their physical play. It turned into a rather ugly soccer game without a lot of ball movement."
The game stayed tied until the end of regulation neared, when Blair was able to score and advance to Sunday’s state final against St. Benedict’s.
"I felt like we dominated the game," said Kingston, whose team can still win the Mid-Atlantic Prep League title with a victory at Hill. "But we gave up a goal with three minutes left."

