STRATFORD - Masuk boys’ soccer Brian Humpal admits that for whatever reason, his team has a tendency to start games slowly, and that was again the case Tuesday against Bunnell.
Masuk was a different team in the second half, however, playing like a club that is capable of winning a conference championship.
Senior midfielder Jack McKeown scored a pair of goals – one on a header and the other on a penalty kick - to lift the Panthers to a 2-1 victory over the Bulldogs in an important South-West Conference contest.
The win kept the Panthers (8-1-1) tied for first place in the SWC with Newtown (8-1-1).
“I just pointed out (at halftime) that they were all over us,” Humpal said. “They were first to the ball, they were a little quicker with the decisions. We were a little bit back on our heels. If we wanted to win the game, we had to go out and try to win the game.”
McKeown acknowledged that the Bulldogs were the hungrier team in the opening 40 minutes.
“We didn’t really want it that much in the first half,” he said. “We played harder in the second half.”
Bunnell (7-3-0) cashed in 14 minutes into the contest when a diving Ryan Shultz redirected a shot by Zach Zurila that went wide.
The Bulldogs out-shot Masuk 10-3 in the first half, but couldn’t get a second goal. Panthers goalkeeper Anthony Presutto kept his team in the game with nine saves before intermission.
"We got complacent,” Bunnell coach Jim Ginand said. “We played well in the first half and we played so bad in the second half. We stopped moving the ball, we stopped switching the field and stopped playing possession. We gave that game away.”
Bret Kuchenbecker, the SWC’s leading goal-scorer with 11, was quiet in the first half, but that changed only five minutes into the second.
After making a charge down the right side, Kuchenbecker sent a perfect centering pass into the middle, where McKeown got his head on the ball for a pretty goal.
“The big difference was our effort in the second half,” Humpal said. “It wasn’t anything tactical. It wasn’t anything different that we did. They just picked up the intensity a little bit.”
Seven minutes later, Mike Saia was tripped inside the box, and McKeown converted the penalty kick.
“We marked up so well on No. 6 (McKeown) and No. 13 (Kuchenbecker) – their two top scorers – in the first half,” Ginand said. “We did such a good job on them in the first half, then we got lackadaisical and complacent, and we let them put two in.”
On Thursday, the Panthers suffered their only loss of the season, 3-1 at Barlow, the team that beat them in last year’s SWC championship game.
Since then, Masuk has rebounded with a pair of solid wins. On Saturday, the Panthers blanked Newtown, 1-0, handing the Nighthawks their first defeat of the campaign.
“It was a big win on Saturday,” Humpal added. “We didn’t want to take a step back and be satisfied with that. We got to keep moving forward, and I thought in the first half we were playing as if we were satisfied."
Bunnell suffered its second straight loss, as the Bulldogs were coming off Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Pomperaug.
They are still in good shape to make the SWC playoffs, as the top eight finishers qualify. Monday’s loss dropped Bunnell into a tie for fourth with Brookfield.
“We’ll regroup,” Ginand said. “The first half is something to build on. We still have a lot of young players.”
Comments: