Classical knocks off Marblehead 1-0

MARBLEHEAD – Classical visited Sgt. Chris Piper Field at Marblehead High School to face the Magicians in their only meeting of the year, as they are in different divisions in the Northeastern Conference (Classical is in the large school division, while Marblehead is in the small). Classical defeated Marblehead, 1-0.Classical improves to 7-3-2, while Marblehead drops to 4-4-2.Marblehead coach Steve Ingemi said before the game, “We have no stars on this team. We work well together and, hopefully, come out on top at the end. We have scored seventeen goals this season, and nine different players have done the scoring.”Joe Skahan’s Rams were coming off a defeat last Thursday to Danvers.Before the game, Skahan said, “We have to turn it around ? After Marblehead, we have played the rest of the schedule already this year and we only lost to Peabody. We have made a couple of changes that we hope will strengthen both our offense and defense.”In the first half, both teams went end line to end line, with the defenders and keepers all doing an outstanding job. Two things that Classical did helped the Rams: The team moved Danny Henriquez from wing defender to sweeper. It looks like he found a home at the deep back position. He was all over the field, clearing balls before they could get to Jeremy Dorson, the Rams keeper. The other change was to move Miguel Castro from wing to striker, making it difficult for the Marblehead defenders to cover him. In the thirty-ninth minute, Kevin Kakou, a freshman midfielder, carried the ball down the left wing, and hit a left-footed square pass to an uncovered Castro in the arc. The keeper came off the line to make a play on Castro, but he went by the keeper and had the whole net to put in the ball. This made the score Classical 1, Marblehead 0. A few seconds after the restart, the half came to an end.The second half was a carbon copy of the first, with both teams having multiple chances to score. Castro hit the post twice. Marblehead keeper Kurt Grossman and Classical keeper Dorson were outstanding, making more than a dozen saves each in the game. Marblehead has a very unique offensive weapon. Junior Matt Frankel can throw the ball from the sideline across the goal mouth. Since there is no offsides on a throw-in, this makes for some interesting situations when the Magicians have a throw-in down inside the area.With 15 minutes to go, Ingemi sent in a new keeper, Nat Williams, and moved the starting keeper to striker to add some punch to the offense.With 10 seconds to go in the game, Marblehead had a throw-in near the Classical end line. Ingemi called a time-out and set up a play with a long throw-in from Frankel. The ball came down in front of the Classical keeper, but it was cleared away by a Classical defender, and that was the game.After the game, Skahan had praise for everyone. He said, “They all played well especially, Danny (Henriquez), Jeremy (Dorson) and Miguel (Castro). We need one more point to qualify for the states and we hope to get it Thursday in a make-up game at Manning against Winthrop.”