Millionaires feel growing pains early on

LENOX – Boys’ soccer is coming off another western Massachusetts title, as they have three of the last four years. This year, a young goalkeeper and defensive back line has been the main reason for Lenox’s unfamiliar (3-2) overall start.

After two lopsided defeats to Mt. Greylock and Wahconah, the Millionaires regrouped with a convincing 6-2 win over a speedy Taconic team last Friday.

“The results [two losses] were indicative to the way we played,” said Lenox Head Coach Scott Chadwick. “We didn’t play well defensively and we had some scoring chances and didn’t score.”

On the back line, Lenox will be relying on sophomores – goalie Trevor Hathaway and center defensive back Dillon Benham – to keep the Millionaires in close games against the Berkshire County elite.

“[Hathaway] is getting there, he is a timid sophomore, and he is going to take his lumps,” Chadwick said. “The back line too, because we have only one senior back there.”

Against Taconic, Chadwick moved Benham from the outside on the defensive line to the center, and the tall sophomore responded by anchoring the defense against the fast attackers of Taconic.

“[Benham] did a really good job back there, breaking up plays and stopping the ball,” Chadwick said. “He is good in the air and he is good with his feet.”

Offensively, Lenox boasts six of their eight seniors on the front lines, with seniors Seamus Ryan, Andrew Vickery, Abdul Henaidi and Alex Bennett creating a majority of the offense for Chadwick’s crew.

“I am not worried about scoring goals,” the coach said, as Ryan (two goals, two assists), Vickery (two goals) and Bennett (one goal, one assist) lead the Millionaires in scoring against Taconic.

“We have decent depth, I have eight seniors and six play up top so I rotate them and interchange them and it adds to our threat,” he added. “We work a lot on movement, passing and moving off the ball.”

Lenox’s strength resides in their skill play; they are equally aggressive to the ball, but their ability to cross the field and spread teams out that crowd the box allows the midfielders to come across high, creating easy scoring opportunities, such as in the first half against Taconic, where the Millionaires jumped out to a 4-0 lead at halftime.

“They started deep so we worked to move the ball pretty well, because the combinations in the middle [of the field] wasn’t working too well,” Chadwick said. “We don’t have too much team speed, so we try to drop off and have two guys to cover teams, and it worked well for some of the game.”

Taconic utilized the long pass and isolated their speedy attackers to score quickly at the start of the second half, to cut the score to 4-2 before Bennett and Vickery added late goals to seal it.

“We just need to work on our defense and getting numbers around the ball,” said Chadwick.

Another obstacle this season for the team’s defensive crew has been the officiating, which as been over exuberant in making calls, even issuing yellow cards, for aggressive defensive plays on the ball.

The only way for Lenox to be successful on defense is to utilize their skill on the ball and eliminate the opposing team’s speed, and if the referee’s penalize the Millionaire’s for aggressive play, it could be a challenging year for Chadwick’s squad.

Posted by Tim Davis on September 27, 2012. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry