Sports

Quality not Quantity: Three tourney teams set for Saturday

Three tourney teams set for Saturday

By John Shimer
staff writer
Published: November 6, 2009

Tomorrow, three River Rival soccer teams — the Triton boys, the Georgetown girls and the Pentucket girls — will suit up for what they began the season chasing: the state tournament.

The Vikings (10-7-1), who play in the Division 2 North, drew a preliminary home game as the No. 14 seed, facing off against No. 19 seed Shawsheen Tech (8-7-3) at 2 p.m. Should they win, Triton would take on fellow CAL rival and No. 3 seed North Andover (15-1-2) on Monday at 4 p.m.

With perhaps the toughest draw of all the three teams, No. 11 seed Pentucket (8-5-5) will travel to face last year's Division 2 North champions, No. 6 seed Belmont (11-5-2) in Belmont at 2:45 p.m. A win would earn the Sachems no picnic against the winner of No. 3 seed Wayland (14-2-2) or No. 14 seed Marblehead (9-7-2) at a date and time to be announced.

As the Division 3 North No. 5 seed, Georgetown may be the River Rivals' best bet to make a lengthy run, drawing No. 12 seed Academy of Notre Dame (5-9-4) at home at 2 p.m. A win would most likely set a rematch with CAL rivals and No. 4 seed Lynnfield (13-3-2), or No. 13 seed Weston (5-11-2) on Monday.

This year is marked in particular for the more glaring absences — namely the two-time defending Division 3 state champion Newburyport girls — who moved up to Division 2, but lost their last five games to miss out on tournament action.

Also missing the tournament were the Georgetown boys, who made it to the Division 3 North finals a season ago; the Newburyport boys, who ran out of gas with injury issues in the middle of the season; the Pentucket boys, who had disciplinary issues that crippled the team; and both the Triton girls and Amesbury girls, who were each seeking their program's first ever tourney berth but each came up one win shy.

However, there is plenty of quality in talent and ability for the three teams that did earn their place and will proudly represent both the Cape Ann League and River Rival region.

Although Triton coach Brad Smith certainly does not want his team looking past its first round opponent, it would take a monumental upset for the Commonwealth Lower sided Shawsheen to knock off the Vikings. In common games, Triton beat Amesbury 3-1 early in the year, then roundly thrashed the Indians 6-2 the next time, while Shawsheen had a closer tilt, narrowly edging those same Indians 3-2 in their only match.

For Smith, the 0-0 tie with Hamilton-Wenham just six games into the season seemed to be the turning point for his Vikes, as the team finally picked up its intensity level and showed what it was capable of down the stretch.

"We have a senior-heavy team, and to their credit, they realized we needed to change how we were approaching games or our season would end sooner than they wanted," said Smith, who was happy with how his two scrimmages against Rockport and Hamilton-Wenham went this past week to prepare for the tournament. "We played Hamilton-Wenham and tied (0-0), and that was the last game I saw the lack of intensity.

"Since then, our practices and games were much more consistent," Smith continued. "We played our best games against the biggies (North Andover, Masconomet, Wilmington). All three games were very well played, all three were in the second half of the season, and I think all three were related because we picked it up (since the HW game)."

Another key aspect for the Vikings was the return from injury of senior center midfielder/forward Pat Martin. During his absence, several players received playing time and gained confidence. When Martin returned, Collin Smith was able to move back to sweeper to solidify the defense, and those other former bench players became contributors for the Vikings.

One team that has not been as lucky and has been bitten by the injury bug, especially recently, are the Pentucket girls. In the team's last regular season game the Sachems found themselves down to just three subs. And as recently as Thursday's practice, coach Greg Scruton said of the 26 players combined from both the JV and varsity teams to fulfill the playoff roster, only 19 dressed for practice with most of those not playing being varsity players.

"We're very confident that whoever will dress will do a great job," said Scruton, whose team will play just its second game on turf (the other in North Andover, a 2-2 tie) after an hour-long bus ride to Belmont. "The other day versus Masco we had kids step up, and they know when their number is called that we'll have confidence in those players."

Taking on the defending North champs will be no small task, especially with a potentially short-handed roster. Yet, Scruton continued to portray the confident face that has taken his team this far to date.

"We have to play our game. This is a game you are not going to change a whole lot," Scruton said. "We had a good practice today with a lot of intensity and we're focused on playing our game. That's the plan."