The Lynnfield boys soccer team has been a bit hot and cold lately, but Saturday morning the Pioneers turned up the heat with a 2-0 shutout victory over Georgetown on the road.
Ben Sykes scored one goal in the win for Lynnfield, while Mateusz Brezynski had one assist.
“It was nice to get the win, especially since we’ve been very up-and-down with our play over the past few games,” said Lynnfield coach Brent Munroe. “There have been times when the energy wasn’t as high as it should have been, but we still played well enough to get the win out there.”
The Pioneers have been working for wins on their way through the season, pulling off a few close ones despite not playing their best soccer. Munroe sees some positives in that fact, most notably that his team has found a way to grind out close wins.
“We had a bit of a lull in our play over the past few games, but we were still able to get wins out of it,” said Munroe. “It’s definitely a positive that we’ve found ways to win, but I’d much rather see us play better soccer over the next couple weeks and win games that way.”
The Pioneers got on the board in the first quarter after Georgetown scored an own-goal on a corner kick by Lynnfield. After an indirect kick put the ball on Sykes’ foot, Sykes sent a lofting cross into the box that ricocheted off a Georgetown player and found the back of the net for a 1-0 lead.
Having been denied a goal earlier in the game, Sykes came back later and scored. Brezynski slipped Sykes a pass in the offensive box and Sykes did the rest, slipping one past the Georgetown goalkeeper to put the Pioneers up 2-0 and effectively seal the win.
“We certainly did enough to win today, but I still think we have some even better soccer in us,” said Munroe. “We obviously benefited from the own goal, but our defensive pressure was also able to keep Georgetown off the board, so that’s certainly a positive.”
Lynnfield now sits at 4-1-2 on the season, and the Pioneers have a big week of games ahead of them with Cape Ann League matchups against Rockport, Triton and Pentucket. Lynnfield will also celebrate its Senior Day during Wednesday’s game against Triton.
“I think if we can continue to play the way we played (Saturday), we’ll be in really good shape,” said Munroe. “We definitely are capable of playing some great soccer at times, and we’re going to need it as we go into this tough stretch of league games this coming week.”
Lynnfield travels to Rockport Monday afternoon (4).
