East Boston ousts English boys soccer

EAST BOSTON ? A brisk and consistent wind tore through the field, as English’s boys soccer team mounted its final stand yesterday afternoon. The Bulldogs lost a hard-fought and physical Division 1 North first-round match to East Boston 2-0.”I’m really proud of the guys,” English coach Kerry King said. “There is a reason that this team only has one loss; they are a great team. I think that we played hard and had some great opportunities.”The Jets’ main game plan was to try to take Mubarak Nyang out of the game as much as possible.”I did some scouting (of English) and saw that (Nyang) is a great player,” East Boston coach Lorenzo DiBenedetto said. “He has some dangerous moves. I was very impressed with the way that we defended him in particular.”Nyang wasn’t kept quiet for the whole game. The senior forward had a few nice chances in the second half. The best came with about 15 minutes remaining in the game and the Bulldogs only down by a goal. Standing a mere five feet from the net, the ball trickled through the defense and all that stood between the equalizing goal was Jets goaltender Jorge Benitez.”I think (Benitez) gets overlooked a lot,” said DiBenedetto, “mainly because our defense does such a good job tying other teams up.”Nyang fired a crisp shot that looked destined for the back of the net. Benitez sprawled to his right and made a sensational save.Aside from the first few minutes of the game, English struggled in the first half sustaining any type of offensive threat.”I think that we had a tough time moving the ball in the first half with the wind in our face,” said King. “We gave up a tough goal early and then (East Boston) had some good momentum.”The goal came when the ball innocently rolled into goalie Daniel Cordoba. Cordoba misplayed the ball and freshman Carlos Andres Ruiz took advantage. Cordoba had an excellent game in net despite this play. He made several point-blank saves.After the goal, East Boston dominated the remainder of the first half. Ruiz had three other opportunities that flew over the crossbar. The Jets kept the ball in the English side of the field for the majority of the remaining minutes of the half.The second half started off similarly. Even though the Bulldogs defense managed to limit the scoring opportunities, East Boston did control the early going. King was forced to move a sweeper up to an attacker position. While the move did not pay off with a goal, it did swing the momentum to the Bulldogs.However, Ruiz took advantage of the aggressive mode of soccer that the Bulldogs were playing. The freshman scored his second goal of the game.”It was feast or famine for us at that point,” said King. “We needed to score, and then, on that play, I think that we lost track of (Ruiz).”