Martlets Shutout by Deerfield

Though today’s result was similar to Wednesday’s, the tenor and energy of the two games were very different. Our last game was characterized by our gritty performance against an older, more skilled opponent; today – at least in the first half – we lacked grit. Deerfield’s squad may have indeed been a little sharper than us, but the majority of the five first-half goals they scored were mostly attributable to our passivity, poor communication, and subpar effort. To our credit, we turned things around in the second half and limited Deerfield’s scoring opportunities while producing several of our own. Noteworthy performances were given by midfielders Paul Coccaro ‘28 and Caden Weichselbaumer ‘28, backs Dylan Curtis ‘28, and forwards Rafa Rodrigues ‘28 and Winston Caracappa ‘28. Carsten Matthews ‘28 earned the Grit and Grace award for the game for his tough, physical play that he balanced with good control and sportsmanship. We’ll try to learn from this experience and build on the huge improvement we made in the second half.