By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The Princeton Day School boys soccer team has already faced some tough challenges this season.
So when the Panthers surrendered a goal to the Hun School just 14 seconds into the second half of their match-up on Tuesday, they were prepared to respond.
”That first goal they scored in the second half was tough,” said midfielder Coby Gibson. “But I think we came back well. We did a good job of regrouping after that and keeping the pressure up and keeping the ball in their half.”
The Panthers had taken a 1-0 lead on a first-half goal by Diego Garcia. But Hun responded early in the second half to tie the score before the Panthers got the game-winner from Marco Pinhiero with 29 minutes left.
The win lifted the Panthers to 5-2-1 on the season.
”We have had some tough losses,” said Gibson, who has been playing left midfield for the Panthers. “We’ve played well in some of those games and had a chance to win them. So it was nice to come away with a win against Hun. We’ve played some good games and it is a good way to start the season.
”We work a lot on possession in practices. And after you get a goal scored on you like that we try to keep the ball and pass it around and get our confidence back up again.”
PDS has suffered its losses against Peddie and Pennington, two premier programs. The Panthers have also managed wins against some strong teams as well, such as Hun, Blair and George.
The latest wins over Hun and Blair have the Panthers feeling good about the rest of the season.
”We definitely have a chance this year in both tournaments,” Gibson said. “If we play the way we did in some of the earlier games and just finish more on some of our opportunities we’ll do well and hopefully have a good shot.”
One key has been a balanced offense that has not relied too heavily on Pinhiero, a senior captain. The shots and goals have been more evenly distributed this year which has made the Panthers a tough team to defend.
”It’s nice,” Gibson said. “In some previous years we have had to rely on one or two people to score. This year, we have been trying to get everybody to take shots on goal and just see what happens. That first goal that Diego had he just lobbed it in and it worked out. We need to do that more often and create opportunities like that and make things happen.
”Teams have started to figure out that Marco is one of the best players if not the best and he is one of our goal scorers. But this year it is nice to make teams worry about more than one person.”
The Panthers were looking to continue their improved play when they faced Lawrenceville in a game that was scheduled to be played on Thursday.
For Hun, the loss was its fifth straight after opening the season with a pair of wins. The Raiders have been through a very tough stretch in their schedule during which they played at Chestnut Hill, Germantown Academy, Pennington and Haverford before returning home to face PDS.
”We played three Inter-Ac schools and Pennington, which was tough,” Hun coach Pat Quirk said. “I think it helps us as we get into the tournaments. It didn’t help that we played them with a couple injuries and some guys missing each game. We haven’t really had a complete game for a few weeks now.”
The Raiders had their moments in the loss to PDS. But other than the early second-half goal by Jacob Keller, the Raiders did not generate many scoring chances.
”We got excited after the goal but we couldn’t sustain it,” said Quirk, whose team was scheduled to host George on Thursday. “We had some moments where we possessed the ball well, which is what we practice every day. Now we are trying to get it to translate from practice to a game. We have not quite gotten there yet. We said at halftime we wanted to put them under some pressure and we did, which led to our goal. We’ve going to have to outwork teams.”
