LACONIA, N.H. – The No. 3 seed Lakers used a direct kick from sophomore Parker Reed in overtime to edge out the No. 2 seed Littleton on Monday at Laconia High School in the D-IV boys soccer semifinals, and have now punched their ticket to the D-IV state title game on Saturday.
Five minutes into the first overtime after 80 minutes couldn’t decide a victor, a deep push from the Lakers resulted in a Littleton penalty just outside the box on the right side, which set up a free kick for the Lakers’ Reed.
“I actually had this weird, good feeling… I just felt confident that I’d be able to put it in,” said an emotional Reed post-game when asked what was going through his head as he stepped up with the game on the line.
Reed took a few short steps and kicked the ball with his right foot, and with a nice touch on the ball, he was able to sneak it into the top-right corner, as the ball tipped the goalkeeper’s outstretched hand but still managed to reach the back of the net because of the perfect placement of the kick.
“I saw the ball lined up and I just thought I could put it right around and into that right corner… and it went right in,” said Reed.
The play in the first and second half was as tight of a contest as you could imagine, with the two similar clubs battling each other non-stop in a physical, defense-filled semifinal. Littleton handed Sunapee their first loss of the regular season this year when they beat the Lakers 1-0 at home on September 7, and this game was even more of a battle.
“We knew it was going to be tight,” said Sunapee head coach Jack Iacopino. “We knew they were going to be good. They got some really good players and we knew we had to keep them tied up and not give them too many opportunities to shoot.”
Sunapee did just that. Although Littleton had 13 shots on the day, only 3 of them were on goal. Littleton’s third shot on goal Monday came in the opening minutes of overtime and Sunapee needed a tremendous save from senior Justin Claus to keep their season alive.
“Littleton didn’t have a lot of shots on goal, but they put a couple on Justin that were good saves,” said Iacopino. “He came up big for us.”
“I’m proud of all the boys… the defense and offense both played well,” said coach Iacopino. “Sure we could’ve made a couple more passes and things like that… but these kids played with so much heart and intensity. We knew Littleton was going to come out with intensity and we had to match it.”
When asked what it means to head to the state finals, Iacopino said, “It’s great. It’s been a while since I’ve been there… this group has never been there. It’d going to be good… we’re looking forward to it.”
In the game, Sunapee won the corner-battle, 4-1, and had more shots on goal than Littleton, 6-3.
The D-IV championship game will be on Saturday, November 3 at Southern New Hampshire University at 11:30 a.m. Sunapee will play No. 1 Newmarket after the Mules edged Concord Christian 1-0 in 2OT Monday night.
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