Central, building toward postseason, drops tight one at home

MANCHESTER, NH – Scoreless through 60-plus minutes, Tuesday’s contest between the Manchester Central High School boys soccer team and Pinkerton Academy had the feel of a postseason contest.

Thankfully for first-year CHS head coach Maid Ahmic and his players, the playoffs don’t begin for another couple weeks, and the Little Green now live to fight another day after they conceded two goals in the final 20 minutes and fell, 2-0, at Gill Stadium.

“It was a 50/50 game. It was up-and-down, and I thought we had our moments,” said Ahmic. “If we take advantage of a couple of those chances, we probably win the game. We didn’t, and we got punished.”

Pinkerton improved to 10-1 on the season to move into a tie atop the Division-I standings while Central slipped to 7-4 and seventh in the table.

“It was a nice win,” said Pinkerton head coach Kerry Boles. “We still have some injuries we’re dealing with, so we were plugging some holes, but Central’s a good team … We had a few guys step up, but that’s a good team over there. We’ve seen them a couple times and let me tell you, they looked a lot different today.”

Though Central had a couple quality opportunities in front of the net, the Pinkerton defense, backed by senior goalie Cameron Kincik, stood up, while the Little Green conceded twice on the opposite end of the pitch.

“We weren’t clinical in front of the net,” said Ahmic. “It’s not like Pinkerton did something to prevent us (from scoring), we just didn’t make smart decisions in front of the goal. You know, instead of passing, we shot from an angle that wasn’t good and you can’t make mistakes like that against good teams.”

The first Pinkerton goal came on a cross from junior Phoenix Beaulieu to Astros’ senior striker Jason Rzasa who punched the ball past Central sophomore keeper Samuel O’Toole with 19:30 left on the clock; and the nail in Central’s coffin came 12-minutes later when PA captain Zack Smith, at the top of the box, received a pass from Beaulieu, leaned back and delivered a perfectly-curved heat-seeking missile off the top right corner and into the back of the net.

“The second goal was a beautiful shot. Can’t do much about that,” said Ahmic. “The first goal, once that went in, we kind of panicked a little bit instead of sticking to the way we wanted to play, and it is what it is, so we’re going to learn eventually or we’re going to just keep getting punished.”

With all four of Central’s losses coming against fellow top-7 teams – Pinkerton, defending-champ Nashua South, Bedford and Windham – Central now looks to begin building some momentum heading toward the postseason, first with a road match at 3-7 Merrimack Thursday night at 6 p.m. Next week, they return  to Gill for a Tuesday, Oct. 10 home contest against 2-7-2 Bishop Guertin and then trek north for a big road test at 10-1 Hanover on Thursday the 12th at 4 p.m.

“I’m not worried so much about finishing top 4 or top 8 or wherever we end up finishing, all I care about is putting together four good games once the playoffs start,”said Ahmic. “So we’ll end up where we end up, and then hopefully we’ll get a good run of form and games. Anybody can beat anybody in the league this year. It’s wide open.”

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