LYNN — A well-rounded Excel attack proved to be a bit too much for the KIPP Academy boys soccer team in a 3-0 loss Tuesday night at Manning Field.
After finding themselves in an early 2-0 hole, the Panthers couldn’t find any openings in Excel’s defense.
“Excel definitely has a strong team overall,” KIPP coach Jon Langlois said. “We struggle with complete teams. We’re a team that usually tends to find weaknesses in certain aspects of the game. We adapt our game and go at opponents’ problems. But this is just a solid team and we couldn’t create opportunities.”
A handful of midseason injuries didn’t help the Panthers in the midfield.
“We have some injuries in the middle of the field that have really brought us down,” Langlois said. “We just haven’t found anybody to replace those guys. It’s tough playing without key players. It makes the wins a little bit more rewarding but at the same time it makes your job a lot harder.”
Despite the loss, freshman goalkeeper Jefferson Paz bailed the Panthers out all night long. He finished with nine saves.
“Jefferson’s a rock,” Langlois said. “He played for us last year as an eighth grader. If I can take anything positive from this game it’s that my keeper just never gives up. He’s always picking up the slack in the back end.”
Paz was tested early on in this one but came away with a pair of early saves, including a diving stop one-on-one with an Excel forward.
But the Excel pressure didn’t let up and the Panthers couldn’t hold on for long. With just over 31 minutes left in the first half a shot was blocked by a KIPP defender but the rebound landed right on the foot of an Excel forward who scored an easy goal to get out to an early 1-0 lead.
Less than a minute later KIPP found itself on the defensive again. This time Paz made a nice save on a shot but once again the rebound took an Excel bounce and the Panthers found themselves in a 2-0 hole.
From there, KIPP got a bit more offensive pressure but struggled to create quality chances in the box. The Panthers had a corner kick late in the first half but failed to take advantage of the opportunity.
The second half was more of the same with Paz and the Panthers defense just barely holding on to keep KIPP in the game. But Excel added another score midway through the second half to push its lead to 3-0 and held on the rest of the way.
“Excel out ran us (Tuesday),” Langlois said. “We shook up the defense a little bit in terms of moving some guys around. We had our starting center back out with an injury so we had to shuffle things around and hope for the best. At the end of the day we will take this and focus on what we need to work on. We’ll go into practice (Wednesday) and work on those things.”
The loss moves the Panthers to 2-2 on the season. KIPP will hope to straighten things out before a tough slate of games in the next few weeks starting with Pioneer Charter II Thursday.
“We’re 2-2 so there’s still hope,” Langlois said. “We have a big push coming in the next three weeks. Two games this week and three games in the following weeks. Hopefully we can refocus and make a push for the (postseason).”
