October 26, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHA Soccer puts en effort, but no win
by Devon Grieb

CHA’s #21 Michael Marino. For more archived photos of CHA soccer visit www.chlocalphotos.com. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

Chestnut Hill Academy hosted Haverford School this past Friday afternoon and suffered another loss to their Inter-Ac League and fell to an 8-6-1 record. The winds were harsh and the players were physical but only three yellow cards were given and only one goal was scored. Despite the roaring sideline which was composed of the Chestnut Hill football team, who had to leave due to excessive noise, and the normal vocal crowd, the Devils were not able to produce any numbers walking away with only the thoughts of what could’ve been.

The game started off evenly matched. Ryan Duffy and co-captain Ian DeSantis led the defense and Chip Culp made some amazing saves. Joe Breen almost had the first goal of the game after a fatal mistake by the Haverford goalie misreading the ball, but he was unable to capitalize, a seeming trend throughout the game. Mike Marino kept the pressure high on Haverford but couldn’t adjust to the wind, which made everyone of his kicks sore right over the goal post.

Haverford would score the game’s only goal off of the one mistake made by the Devils defense. After a routine corner kick, Haverford set the ball in play but it was well short of the target. With a sigh of relief, Chestnut Hill forgot to clear the ball out of the zone, allowing one of the Haverford forwards who was standing right by the net to softly kick the ball in.

Soon after the first goal was scored the Devil frustration started to show. Co-captain Brent Chapman got the first yellow card of the game. Some fights were breaking out and the refs intervened but without discipline.

The next yellow card was given to a Haverford player who went in to contest a shot, trying to get past Culp. The Haverford player jumped in the air, slamming into Culp in efforts to knock the ball in before the Devil goalie had a chance at it. Culp went down and the crowd gasped at the sight of their star goalie grabbing his chest. Culp took a minute, caught his breath and returned to action while the ref handed the Haverford player his yellow card for interference with the goalie.

The hard hitting continued throughout the first half and seemed it would only worsen as the game progressed. There were a few good attempts by Breen again and Peter Adubato but to no avail.

The second half started out with a great shot attempt by Alimamy Bangura but was not allowed it’s seemed glory, as the Haverford goalie was right there to take away the score. Everything seemed to come down to a final corner kick in the last four minutes of the game, which Chestnut Hill was unable to capitalize on. The last yellow card was handed out to Taylor Ferry after he had been caught shoving a player for the second time. Despite their efforts the Devils were not able to walk away with a win but held it close keeping everyone involved till the very end.

Chestnut Hill’s next home game will be 11/9/06 against Germantown Academy.