October 19, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHC men’s booters beat Bard, 3-0
by TOM UTESCHER

CHC men’s soccer goalie Matt Henigan. For more archived photos of CHC men's soccer visit www.chlocalphotos.com. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

The men’s soccer team at Chestnut Hill College served up a Columbus Day special for home fans, turning a 1-0 halftime lead into a 3-0 victory in a North Eastern Athletic Conference game against the Bard College Raptors.

The host Griffins, who came into the match ranked third in the NEAC, improved to 5-1-2 in conference play and 8-2-2 overall. The sixth-ranked Raptors (4-4, 7-5) clearly demonstrated that they were no pushovers, which made Chestnut Hill’s mastery of the scoreboard seem all the more impressive.

The successful outcome gave the Griffins a seven-game unbeaten streak consisting of five wins and two ties. It was a good day for the freshman class, as rookies accounted for all three goals against Bard.

“Every day’s a good day for the freshmen,” commented CHC coach Shawn Ferris. “I’m quite pleased with how they’re coming along. This was a good win against a good team.”

Chestnut Hill’s Brandon Saylor sent an early shot past the top left corner of the Raptors’ cage, and after some more offensive pressure by CHC at the outset, Bard went on the attack for a ten-minute stretch in the middle of the period. Two Raptor shots were stopped by CHC keeper Matt Henigan (four saves total), while Stewart Wagner missed at the left post and Noah Weissman could split the uprights on a shot off of a rebound.

Bard wouldn’t be able to sustain such a stretch of offense again for the rest of the game, as the Griffins’ defense clamped down on the Raptors’ primary playmaker, Venezuela native Daniel Pacheco.

“Their forwards are good technical players,” Ferris noted, “so we wanted to close them down early. We wanted to force them to play the ball back or play it laterally, and we accomplished that.”

The hosts moved in front with 12:34 left in the first half. Saylor sent the ball ahead to Matt Gallo, who carried it into the left side of the box and hit a shot that came back off the keeper. Closing in from the far side, Yannick Wallace was there to boot in the rebound.

The locals almost added to their lead in the second minute of the trailing half, when Andrew Thorne served the ball across the goal from the left wing and a header by Mike Devine (the Griffins’ throw-in artist) tracked just outside the right post.

CHC kept attacking, and later delivered a ball up near the left corner for Thorne, who slipped past three defenders into the box, then was tackled – American football-style – by one of the backs. He converted the subsequent penalty kick low on the left, making it 2-0 with 31:38 to go in the game.

As the clock dropped below 20 minutes, Bard shots by Wagner and Weissman resulted in a save and a miss wide to the left. Chestnut Hill capped off the scoring with 9:49 remaining. David Hoenicker, who served up a number of good corner kicks during the match (CHC had eight to Bard’s three), hit one from the left side that dropped down a few yards inside the near post. Alexander Waters beat a Bard back to the ball and jammed it into the cage to give the Griffins a 3-0 victory.