Drury Rebounds, Earns Tie with Patriots
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Drury boys' soccer team rebounded from a poor start to the season last week to earn a 2-2 tie against Mount Anthony on Saturday. Despite being outshot 10-4 and giving up a 6-2 edge in corner kicks, the Blue Devils held a 2-1 lead until the 76th minute, when Dylan Prazak slipped in a goal from the corner of the box to salvage a tie for the Patriots.Despite being four minutes away from his team's first victory of the season, Drury head coach Greg Caproni was upbeat about his team's performance after a 4-0 loss to Hoosac Valley on Thursday.
"This was a big game for us," Caproni said. "Mount Anthony is a bigger, faster and all-around a better team than us, and we ran with them step for step. My goal for this game was to just find the back of the net once. Well, we did that not once but twice. Even giving up a late goal didn't disappoint our team."
After falling behind 1-0 on a goal by Abdul Sumaila in the 27th minute, the Blue Devils (0-1-1) tied the score five minutes later on Connor Meehan's first career varsity goal. The Drury eighth-grader took advantage by a poor clear by the Patriots' keeper and scored into an open net to even the score at one goal apiece. The game remained tied until the 52nd minute, when Devils' senior Jacob Groves took advantage of another poor clearance by the Mount Anthony defense and beat the goalie one on one to pull his team ahead.
"My boys today saw that they can run with better teams," Caproni said. "We didn't even look like the same team from just 48 hours ago. I believe we are moving in the right direction and looking forward to a tough week of two Northern Division games with Lenox and Wahconah."
Junior goalie Joseph Liporace finished with seven saves in net for Drury, which next hosts Lenox at 4 p.m. on Tuesday.