Martlets Defeat AOF

Today’s rematch with the Winged Beavers in Avon was a much closer affair. We mostly controlled the action in the first half and went into intermission with a 3-0 lead thanks to good goalkeeping by Thomas Merrill ‘28, two goals from midfielder Carsten Matthews ‘28 (one on a beautiful through ball by left wing Justin Li ‘28), and a Max Zong ‘28 rebound of a shot from middie Caden Weichselbaumer ‘28. We had at least three more really good scoring chances, two from nearly point-blank range, but couldn’t convert. To their credit, Old Farms put a fair amount of pressure on us and had a few missed opportunities of their own. Some alignment and personal adjustments by the home team made things much more interesting in the second half. They dominated play in the first 13 minutes and scored three goals in a five-minute span. We almost answered at the 18-minute mark but again missed from right in front of the next. A little deflated, we lost some 50-50 balls and broke down on the back wall, and Avon took a 4-3 lead with 15 minutes remaining. We overcame some distractions and stopped ourselves from worrying too much about things outside of our control and rallied to score the game’s final two goals in a five-minute span. Midfielder Hyunwoo Chung ‘28 took another brilliant feed from Li and tucked a 10-yarder inside the left side to tie things up, and the game-winner came with four minutes left when Zong slammed home another Weichselbaumer rebound. Paul Coccaro ‘28 was all over the field in the second half and played with grit and courage, and Issac Kwon ‘28 applied a lot of pressure on Avon’s back wall. This was our first one-goal game of the season, so it was nice to learn that we could handle adversity and bounce back when things got tough!