Published: 11/5/2022 10:04:52 PM
Modified: 11/5/2022 10:04:22 PM
MANCHESTER, Vt. — As September turned to October, the Woodstock High boys soccer team was in a tailspin.
The Wasps lost their fourth straight game on Oct. 1 after winning their first three, and their offense had generated just two goals in that stretch. Then Woodstock caught fire, winning six of seven to close the regular season and three more in the playoffs to reach the VPA Division III title game a year after dropping from D-II.
Saturday’s championship game at Applejack Stadium was something of a microcosm for the fifth-seeded Wasps’ season. Trailing by two at the half, Woodstock got a pair of goals in a three-minute span from senior forward Declan McCullough to even the score. But No. 3 seed Peoples pulled ahead moments later and held on from there as the Wasps’ run ended one game short of glory, 3-2.
“Nothing but pride,” Woodstock coach Rob Stainton said. “We had a rocky patch after the first few games, but since then we’ve played really well. We played really well tonight and got ourselves back into the game and then conceded a goal. We were in the game all the way to the end.”
The Wasps (12-6-0) were the stronger side for the first 20 minutes, but the Wolves began to turn the tide late in the first half.
In the 28th minute, Ivan Buczek sent in a free kick that was redirected by Max Kuhnle and into the hands of Woodstock sophomore goalkeeper Ethan Zayas, but Zayas couldn’t quite hang on and Peoples had the game’s first goal.
Nathan Nolan scored from the penalty spot two minutes later to double the Wolves’ advantage.
“All we did (at halftime) was try and correct some of the things we thought we had done wrong in the first half,” Stainton said. “We did that, and we got the opportunities for Declan. It was about correcting the things we hadn’t done as good a job as we could have.”
Junior midfielder Ezra Lockhart sent a long ball up the field to McCullough in the 46th minute, and McCullough got on the end of it with nobody but the goalkeeper in front of him. The Wasps’ leading scorer did the rest to get his team on the board.
Three minutes later, McCullough received the ball from senior midfielder Rowan Smail just across midfield and dribbled through several Peoples defenders, got past the keeper and shot into a wide-open net for the equalizer, his 14th goal of the year.
“In my mind, once the ball gets kicked, run,” McCullough said. “That’s all we’ve been doing this year, and it’s worked. It got us here, so that’s what we did, and it worked twice. Could’ve had another one, but it didn’t work out.”
McCullough was referring to the 56th minute, when he again dribbled past the keeper and fired a shot, but the Wolves’ Shamus Rooney cleared it off the line. By then, Woodstock was trailing again — Peoples came right down the field on the kickoff after McCullough’s second goal and Kuhnle netted his second of the evening.
The Wasps’ comeback attempt got much harder in the 63rd minute, when senior midfielder Alec Smail was sent off with a red card for pushing a Wolves player, forcing the Wasps to play the rest of the game down a man. Woodstock continued to press in the final minutes but could not find the chance it was looking for.
Seniors McCullough, Rowan and Alec Smail and Ben McKenna have played their final soccer game in the green and black.
“It was a great season,” McCullough said. “We beat Hartford in overtime on Senior Night; that’s a core memory. I honestly didn’t expect us to make it to the championship, but here we are. Couldn’t have asked for a better senior season.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.