Classical boys soccer regroups for victory

LYNN – With the postseason rapidly approaching, the Lynn Classical boys soccer team came out quite sluggish in Monday afternoon?s Columbus Day matinee with Beverly. Trailing 1-0 at halftime, the Rams turned things around in the second half, scoring three times to earn a 3-1 victory at Manning Field.Now 7-5-1 (6-4-1 in the conference), Classical is just three points shy of earning a trip to the state tournament.The early noon start time seemed to affect the Rams after the opening whistle as Beverly controlled the ball for the first 20 minutes. It didn?t take the Panthers long to grab a lead as George Hillios drilled home a beautiful shot to the top left corner at the 23:50 mark, assisted by Jack Atherton.Classical finally started generating some chances following the tally, but Beverly keeper Justin Carnavalle made some timely stops, including a highlight-reel save on Yabesi Musema that saw the keeper dive to his left and deflect a shot with his fingertips.?I thought we got off to a little bit of a slow start,” explained Rams coach Rob Upton. “Their goalie made some great saves, but we knew we had to keep working at getting the ball to certain opportunistic spots.”Those spots certainly seemed to open up to start the second period as Classical came out firing, and nearly converted just 25 seconds in on a shot from Abitalib Girdia that missed high over the crossbar.Carnavalle robbed Musema blind a second time in the 12th minute, this time diving to his left to smother a low, hard shot.The tying goal came at the 37:20 mark as Jefferson Lorimer used his blazing speed to outrace a Panthers defender to a free ball down the left side before cutting towards the net and sending a hard shot past Carnavalle.?Jefferson is a very athletic guy and extremely quick on his feet,” said Upton of the goal-scorer. “Once he gets going, it?s very tough to keep up with him.”Classical thought it had the go-ahead goal just over six minutes later as Musema put home what looked to be a rebound. The goal was waved off, however, after the referees congregated and determined that Carnavalle had possession when the ball was put in.?That was a tough call to have go against us, but the guys understood they had to put it behind them,” said Upton. “They did a good job of continuing to play after that and generate some more opportunities.”The Rams? constant pressure paid off after Musema was dragged down in the box and awarded a penalty kick, which he buried to the right side of the net.Classical added an insurance goal with 3:03 left on a beauty of a shot from Keregya Nasibu to the top left corner from 18 yards out. Musema set up the tally with a pass to the middle from the left side of the field.?In the second half, we were able to put the pressure on them and it changed the momentum,” explained Upton. “Hard work earned the penalty kick and Keregya made a great shot to close it out.”