Derryfield boys ready to tackle postseason

MANCHESTER, NH – The Derryfield boys soccer team may not be scoring a lot of goals, but the wins have been coming nonetheless.

Led by captain Chili Cabot, the Cougars capped an 11-4 regular season with a 3-0 win over cross-city rival Trinity last Wednesday to earn the sixth seed in the Division-III playoff tournament.

They open postseason play at 3 p.m. today at home against 11th-ranked Conant (8-7-1).

“It’s been a good season for us in terms of growth,” said Derryfield head coach Jeffrey Cousineau. “We’ve got a variety of players. We have some older players, but a lot of our key players are sophomores, so that mix of youth and experience has been good for us.”

In fact, the Cougars have won six of their last seven contests, and Cousineau noted if it wasn’t for a hit crossbar in an Oct. 13 matchup at 10-5-1 Kearsarge, they could be undefeated in that stretch.

“We’re right where we want to be and we’re playing well at the right time,” he said. “We’re still growing as an offense, so that’s our biggest challenge. In (the game against Kearsarge), we had like five good chances to score and couldn’t quite finish it. So, you know, we lack those quality finishing characteristics, and that may make a difference for us.”

In the Cougars most recent victory over Division-II Trinity, the second this season over the rebuilding program, Cousineau said he felt his players may have been sleepwalking through the first half before turning their effort up a notch and finding the back of the net three times in the final 40 minutes.”

“We finally woke up,” he said. “In the second half, I thought we were far more creative and looked a lot better.”

It was standout central midfielder JJ Jordan, one of the team’s influential seniors, who broke through first in that contest.

“Juan (Sandoval) had gotten the ball wide and then we locked eyes and he knew exactly how to play it,” said Jordan. “He played it right over the top, I kept my line, went through, saw the keeper backing up, so I just decided to slot it into the bottom corner, and that was that.”

Jordan added the team’s second tally a few minutes later and then Sandoval, an outside back, scored the team’s final goal of the contest on a header off a corner kick.

Cousineau said he hopes the team can ride that offensive momentum into the playoffs.

“We hope to win that first game (against Conant) and then the quarterfinal matchup should be winnable, so getting to the semifinals should be reachable,” he said. “You’ve got to get goals, and that’ll be the difference. We’re not a high-scoring team, so we’ve got to keep (the opponent) low and then find a few chances and finish them.”

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