Nyang puts on a clinic as Bulldog soccer team advances

LYNN – Instead of one and done, its through to No. 2.The English boys soccer team took a big step in the state tourney by knocking off Andover, 3-1, in the Division 1 preliminary round. English was seeded 15th in the with a record of 8-5-5. Andover was seeded 18th with at 8-6-4.Mike Wartman, the seven-year Andover head coach, was impressed with everything he saw in Manning Field. His players said they nothing like it in Andover.Even though Andover plays in the highly competitive Merrimac Valley League, Wartman told his players, “Don’t be over-confident. We have to play our best to beat them.”The words were prophetic.When the game started, it was obvious that Andover knew nothing about the Bulldogs. The Warriors’ four-deep defenders played man for man with English’s three attackers and the sweeper stayed back and picked up any loose balls. This game was the first game that English all-league striker, Mubarak Nyang, had not been double- and sometimes triple-teamed for the whole ball game.With only one defender on him playing ball side (between the ball and Nyang), Mubarak put on what most fans would call a clinic.In the 16th minute, defender Chukuma Halewaluh, put a perfect through ball down the left wing that Nyang picked up in full stride, faked out the defender, came flying into the area with the ball tight on his cleats.As soon as the keeper moved, he blasted the ball over the keeper’s head before he could move his hands. This broke the ice with the Bulldogs on top, 1-0.The 1-0 lead lasted two minutes. On English’s first attack on the Andover end since the score, midfielder Eddie Roman had the ball out on the right wing and found Mubarak alone in the arc. He hit him with a pass. Mubarak turned to face the keeper only to see him coming off his line to shut down Mubarak. The English striker hit a small chip shot over the keeper’s head and it slowly rolled into the goal before any Andover defenders could get to the ball to make the score 2-0.Andover cut that lead in half just before halftime. There was an unusual mixup in the Bulldogs defense. The steady play of defenders, Huber Robles, Ashani Nelson and Eric Bransfield and especially the defensive wizardry of sweeper Alex Alvarez kept the Andover strikers away from English keeper Daniel Cordoba. With less than a minute to go before halftime, Andover striker Alex Golan was unmarked and headed the ball just as the Bulldog keeper was coming off his line to make the play. Cordoba did not get the ball and it rolled into the English net.The second half was one of desperation for Andover. The Warriors mounted wave after wave of attacks on the English end. Here Daniel Cordoba rose to the occasion. He made at least a dozen saves on the Andover offense. The most dangerous was a shot that Cordoba missed and it was rolling into the far right corner when Alex Alvarez came from nowhere and took the ball off the line before it went in.You could see the English defenders were starting to tire. All it would take was one goal to put the game into overtime. The goal came but it was in the other end, thanks again, to Mubarak.In the 77th minute, Kevin Garduno had the ball out on the far left wing and some how found Mubarak 25 yards out from the goal. He made a few moves and blasted his third goal of the game past Andover keeper Andrew Osborne. This goal did the Andover team in. With less than 3 minutes to go, catching English was all but impossible. The game ended with no further action.Coach Kerry King was jubilant. It has been a while since an English team put on a performance like today. He said,”We played like we had planned it. I can’t believe they didn’t double Mubarak, but we will take it.”English now goes through to the first round where No. 2 seed East Boston with a 13-1-1 record will be waiting this Sunday in East Boston at 1 p.m.