Devanny’s overtime goal gives Concord boys soccer win over Merrimack

MERRIMACK – There was a lot of frustration Thursday on the soccer pitch at the Anheuser Busch fields.

That can happen when two evenly-matched teams go up against each other like the Merrimack and Concord high school boys soccer teams did.

It took more than 80 minutes, but the Crimson Tide finally found a way to break through midway into overtime, besting the Tomahawks 1-0 in a Division I match.

Trevor Devanny got just enough of the ball on a pass from Christopher Pinkham and the shot was just out of reach of Merrimack keeper Michael Guest to give Concord (4-1-1) the win. Guest finished with seven saves for the ’Hawks (2-3).

“I told them they had to be composed,” Concord coach Scott Dunlop said of the plan going into overtime. “We were definitely getting frustrated because we were getting looks and chance and not able to finish. They’re a very tough team. They’re going to pose problems for teams during the course of the season.”

Both sides had opportunities in regulation to get on the board, but neither team could take advantage. Often times, as soon as one team’s chance would get snuffed out, play would reverse field and turn into an opportunity for the other side.

While the loss was tough for Merrimack to take, head coach Ryan Farnsworth thinks it will help the ’Hawks in the long run.

“I saw a lot of great things from our team, especially being a younger team, we can build off this and move forward,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll get down. They’re frustrated, but we can pick it up and build from this.”

The ’Hawks started to build in the second half, successfully making the adjustments Farnsworth was looking to get.

“We need to get the ball to our feet instead of playing it away and having them counter us,” he said. “The more we possess, the better of we’ll be, so we tried to make that change to where we possessed more. It seemed to happen in the second half and we got more looks because we had the ball at our feet.”

Meanwhile, Dunlop wanted to see the Tide come out on top when battling for 50-50 balls. The coach tried moving a few players around on the field to create something during regulation, but none of the moves resulted in a goal.

“We talked about winning more first and second balls,” he said. “I thought we were losing that at halftime. We moved a few guys around. We took our right back and moved him up top. We tried some different combinations during the course of the second half to give us more opportunities.”

Concord got a break in overtime, when Merrimack’s Taber Yim came up from the back to play a ball and lost it to Dominique Girard. Yim got back to battle for the ball, but Pinkham moved in to take it from the pair.

Pinkham moved the ball to the left side of the goal and sent a centering pass that Devanny managed to get a foot on before the Merrimack defender could. The ball rolled into the back of the net, and the Tide jumped on Devanny, who was on the ground.

“If you work hard, you’ll get the lucky chances, and that kind of sums up overtime,” Farnsworth said. “If you work hard, you’ll get the lucky goals. They definitely worked hard for that goal.”