PEABODY — After getting off to a slow start, the Peabody boys soccer team got its act together and battled to a 6-2 win over Gloucester at Coley Lee Field Monday evening. The Tanners had six different goal scorers, something coach Stan McKeen was very pleased with.
“We had six different guys score today and that’s really what we’ve been looking for this year,” said McKeen. “Everyone contributed today, and it was a great team effort all the way around after a poor start.”
Johnny Alves scored one goal and dished one assist to lead the way, while Ramon Falcao, Michael Tansey, Tulio Nascimento, Noah Surman and Josh Atemkeng each scored once.
For Gloucester, Andrea Napoli and Andrew Coelho each scored one goal, while Elijah Elliot tallied two assists.
The Fishermen certainly appeared to be the fresher team for the first 15 minutes, moving the ball all over the field as Peabody defenders chased behind. It was only after Gloucester scored on a great cross from Elliot to Napoli that the Tanners seemed to wake up.
“I gave them two days off without practice, and you saw how we started the game,” said McKeen. “But the guys were able to get their act together and make plays out there.”
After several minutes of back-and-forth play, Peabody finally began to gain a foothold. Then, the Tanners got a much-needed spark from Alves. After the Tanners cleared the ball all the way into the the offensive zone, the senior captain simply outran everyone to catch up to the ball and put a solid shot past the Gloucester keeper to tie the score at 1-1. That started a string of goals for Peabody, with two more scores coming over the next three minutes. Both goals came on set plays, with Falcao netting one on a free kick and Tansey scoring on a corner kick that was perfectly set up by Alves. After the dust settled at the end of the first half, Peabody led 3-1.
“Scoring a bunch of goals on set plays is huge for us, because we really work on that,” said McKeen. “You can tell the kind of time we put into those plays when they work out so well for us.”
The Tanners continued to put the pressure on at the start of the second half, scoring less than 10 minutes in. This time it was Nascimento, who cleaned up a bouncing ball in the offensive zone and found the back of the net to make it 4-1.
Gloucester finally got one back just a couple minutes later when Elliot made another stellar pass into the offensive zone. He found the foot of Coelho this time, who fired a shot into the net to get the score back to a two-goal deficit.
But that was as close as the Fishermen would get. About 10 minutes later, Surman scored on a corner kick to once again give Peabody a three-goal advantage. Atemkeng added a goal with just under seven minutes remaining to seal the 6-2 victory for the Tanners.
Now at 4-2-1, Peabody still has a tough week ahead with three more games.
“We’ll get back to practice (Tuesday) and work on some things,” McKeen said. “When we move the ball we’re really tough to cover as a team, but there are times when some of our guys hold onto the ball for a little too long. So we’ll work on things like that and keep moving forward.”
The Tanners host Revere Wednesday afternoon (4).
