Rocky Hill boys’ soccer escapes with win over Windsor, 2-1
In what felt like a late-season match with playoff implications, the Rocky Hill Terriers beat the Windsor Warriors by a score of 2-1, on Sept. 27.
The Terriers got an early goal on a penalty kick, called for an inadvertent handball in the box. Rocky HIll’s Austin Murawski buried the shot.
It took Windsor until 9:34 to go in the game to get an equalizing goal, when sophomore Nigel Martin caught a cross, saw an opening, and made the shot look routine - and the Warriors appeared to grab the momentum.
However, just one minute later, Murawski was fed a through-ball almost exactly at the penalty spot and tapped it in.
Terriers’ coach Paul Horta said Winsdor definitely gave his team a challenge.
“To say the least,” he said. “We had missed opportunities, and when we don’t capitalize on them, you keep the [other] team in the game. They got a great goal to equalize, and I’m not sure we would have won if we didn’t respond right away. They played with more passion than we did. Every chance that we left on the field took a little bit of our creativity away, and we started playing too direct.”
Horta said his team is still young, including a bench that is mostly underclassmen and three senior starters. Whether the team reaches its best play this season or next remains to be seen.
“We figure this is the year that we turn it,” he said. “Next year is the year we’re looking forward to but we can do good things this year, if the guys who just jumped from sophomores to juniors join the seniors in focusing on what we’re supposed to do. We’re not there yet with the high-level experience, but we will get there.”
Windsor coach Gary Clarke said his young team had a lot of fight, of which he was proud.
“They competed today, and that’s all I can ask of them,” he said. “Today, we showed we wanted it. There were a couple of tough breaks.”
Building that composure while playing in tense matches and situations will be part of his team’s growth.
“We tried a lot of long balls, looking for that quick fix,” he said. “We need to work in a little more composure, and relax on the ball. We need to find teammates and move the ball up the field.”
The goal is to get the mostly young team enough experience, so they cam make the state tournament and hopefully steal a game or two.
“We’ll get better as we go, and hopefully make the tournament and make some noise,” Clarke said.
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