Welcome to the second 2017 installment of “Set Piece”, the Southington High School Soccer team’s blog spot.
Blue Knight’s on the Pitch: A Look Back and a Look Forward
The Blue Knights started the week with their last scrimmage of the season against Cheshire High School. The team continued to use the scrimmages as an opportunity to sharpen their focus and skills for the season. The game ended in a 2-2 tie and the attention turned to the games that count.
On Friday evening, Southington opened the season on their home turf with an evening match against Hall High School. Hall has traditionally been a strong team in the conference and as the season opener, represented a stiff challenge. Both teams came out aggressive and played evenly which resulted in a 0-0 score at halftime. The Blue Knights started the second half with lots of energy, their hard work was rewarded ten minutes into the half with first goal of the 2017 season. The goal was a result of the hustle of Joe Colaccino as he applied pressure to the Hall goalie as he was handling a ball played in his direction. Joe’s pressure caused the goalie to miss-handle the ball and Joe knocked it in for the 1-0 lead. For the next ten minutes, Hall amped up the pressure as Southington looked for opportunities to extended the lead. With about 10 minutes remaining in the game, Hall tied the game as the ball took an unfortunate bounce into the goal off of a Southington player. The remainder of regulation saw chances for both teams but the second half ended 1-1 and we were off to overtime. The first 5-minutes overtime was played evenly with no scoring. The second 5-minute overtime saw each team have some chances but the game ended in 1-1 tie and solid start to the season for the Blue Knight against a good opponent.
The Blue Knight will start next week with their first road match of the season against conference foe, Conard High School on Tuesday at 3:45pm. Southington will finish the week with a home match against Bristol Central at 3:45pm.
New Fundraiser
Throughout the year, the Friends of Soccer, the Southington High School Soccer team booster club works with its soccer family to raise funds to enhance the experience of the boys in the program. We appreciate all of the support that is provided from the Southington community with our mission.
The first fundraiser of the season is something new. Each member of the soccer team is selling $10 raffle tickets. When you purchase the ticket, you will be entered into a daily raffle for each day in the month of October. Each day a selection will be made and a prize awarded. The daily prizes are gift certificates from local merchants. If you would like to participate, please reach out to any member of the Southington Soccer family before September 25th.
I would like to thank Dave Rodriguez for again this year contributing photos to enhance the story of our team.