Gotterer Scores Three to Lead Lenox Past Drury

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- Drury boys soccer coach John Jacobbe is not prepared to call his latest experiment a success, but it has been anything but a failure.

 

The Blue Devils dropped a 5-1 decision to Lenox on Tuesday afternoon with converted field player Connor Meehan making his second appearance in goal.

 

Although Drury (0-11-3) did allow the five goals, it was the 21 saves from Meehan that show Jacobbe made a good call giving the sophomore a shot between the pipes.

 

Meehan certainly made a believer of Lenox coach Simon Borrett.

 

"The goalie was very, very good," Borrett said. "I haven't heard much about him. if they get three years out of him, counting this year, they'll be in good shape in goal. He was outstanding. He controlled his box."

 

Even Drury's coach does not know how long the box will be Meehan's to control.

 

"This is his second game," Jacobbe said. "We haven't gotten a tally in the win column, so we're just experimenting. Brian [Christian] has done well, but Connor gives us a little more athleticism in there.

 

"[Meehan] has played a little goal in youth soccer before. We tried him against Taconic and gave up two early goals. We tried it against Lenox and gave up two early goals. And noen of them were his fault. They were team goals."

 

Three of Lenox's goals came off the foot of Isaac Gotterer, who helped get the scoring started in the ninth minute with an assist to Emerson Wolski. Six minutes later, Gotterer put back a rebound to give the Millionaires (5-5-4) a 2-0 lead.

 

Late in the half, Gotterer put back another rebound -- this time off a shot by Matt Heim -- to make it 3-0 at half-time.

 

Drury got on the board early in the second half.

 

Josh Giron used a quick restart on a free kick from midfield to find Sully Boland down the middle of the field. Boland finished to give Drury its first goal in four games.

 

Drury spent a little more time in Lenox's end after half-time, but when the Millionaires did possess in the offensive half, they made the most of it, sending 14 shots Meehan's way. Lenox cashed in a couple of those chances, getting goals by Gotterer and Dillon Benham to round out the scoring.

 

Borrett was happy to get out of North Adams with the win but disappointed in the effort from his team, which he said may have been looking ahead to a Thursday match against rival Monument Mountain.

 

"Did we get the result? Yes," Borrett said. "Did we get the performance out of the players? No. It was those simple things that we didn't do well. We didn't switch the field well. We took far too long to break them down.

 

"I told the team, we can't be thinking about Monument until Dury's done, regardless of Drury's record or whoever's record. You have to play the game in front of you. And you can see a lot of players today were thinking about Monument."

 

Drury gets another chance to continue its experiment on Wednesday when it travels to Pioneer.