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Sports

Penalties Hand the Leach and Garner Cup to the Rocketeers

After a 2-2 draw in regulation North Attleboro out-dueled Attleboro in penalty kicks to win the Leach and Garner Cup for the second straight year.

It seems inevitable that every time the and North Attleboro high soccer teams meet the game will be filled with drama, intensity, and a close final score.

This year’s Leach and Garner Cup game from William L. Kelly field checked all those boxes as the Rocketeers took home the trophy after a 4-3 win in penalty kicks following a 2-2 draw after regulation. After North goalie Matt Lougee saved Eoin Grimes penalty, junior midfielder Ryan Kingsley placed his shot in the top corner and gave North their second straight cup victory over the Bombardiers.

North (3-6-4) take home the hardware but as far as the league and the Massachusetts Iterscholastic Athletic Assocation are concerned the game ended in a draw and both teams took home a valuable point in the race for first in the Kelly-Rex Division. Attleboro coach Peter Pereira, although disappointed by his team’s play, was content with the result ahead of Tuesday’s showdown with league leaders Franklin. “It’s an emotional game," he said. "We didn’t play well and the good thing is that we got a point, which is really important to us. We needed that point. Actually North played better than we did. We just played out of control.”

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The game featured end to end action and plenty of physical challenges but the quality passing that both teams prefer struggled to materialize amidst the pace of the game. Attleboro (5-5-3) took the lead out of nowhere with a spectacular Troy Martins volley that left Lougee stranded. North equalized quickly behind another great strike when Mike Manning shifted it to his left foot and curled it into the upper-90 giving the Attleboro keeper Spenser Powell no chance.

The Rocketeers took a 2-1 lead early in the second half when Luke Albertini touched on a corner to the far post that ricocheted off the knee of the unfortunate Max Fokin, but the Bombardiers recovered when Alain Laurent’s precise cross was headed home by Noah Phelps. The Bombardiers finished as the stronger side but couldn’t find the winner and the game headed to the lottery of penalties.

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Coach Pereira has been at the helm for each of the games in the series and he understands better than most the difficulties in keeping the players calm and playing their typical style in the frenetic atmosphere of a cup game, “It’s a scrappy game when you play for this cup. We started this thing 27 years ago and it’s still emotional. Been a lot of penalty shots over the years, that’s alright. The point was big.”

North coach Geoff Burgess, in his first year at the helm of the boys’ team after making the switch from the Lady Rocketeers, was excited about the effort his team put forth to get the win, “It was a great game. It was very physical. You could see there were a lot of hard challenges out there and I just think our kids responded the way you want. Play hard the whole game, the whole 80 minutes, and we were lucky enough to walk away with the cup this year.”

One factor in the Attleboro performance was the suspension of star player Dominik Machado who received a second yellow for his celebration after scoring the winning goal against New Bedford. Coach Pereira certainly missed the attacker, “When you don’t have your best player out there things don’t happen. He controls the whole game, bangs it around and when he’s not there it wasn’t happening. But that’s alright we’ll take the point, go home and try it again next year.”

The Bombardiers will now look to take a giant step towards a potential fourth straight conference title, second in a row in the Hockomock League after two straight Old Colony League titles, when they host the Franklin Panthers on Tuesday afternoon.

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