BELCHERTOWN – It took 13 games, but somebody finally found a way to hand the Belchertown boys soccer team its first defeat of the season on Sunday.
Visiting Ludlow capitalized on a penalty kick in the second half, as Thomas Wadas tucked home the game’s only tally in the 56th minute to lift the Lions to a 1-0 Smith League victory.
It was the first loss of the season for the Orioles, which fell to 9-1-3 overall and finished its Smith League slate with an 8-1-3 mark. Ludlow’s win has the Lions (11-1, 9-1) with the inside track to claim the league title if it can win its final two Smith games against Minnechaug and Amherst.
Belchertown won the first meeting between the two teams, 1-0, back in September.
“If you told me going into the season that we’d lose only one game throughout our entire run of the Smith League, and it’d be 1-0 to Ludlow and we split with them? I’d be happy with that,” Belchertown head coach Zach Siano said. “We’ve just got to take advantage of some opportunities. I thought we let a couple slip by us, but the guys worked as hard as they could today and there’s a lot of positives to take from it.”
Locked in a scoreless game with few major scoring chances for either team, the Lions set up their only goal on an innocuous-looking cross into the box. The ball deflected off a Belchertown defender and into his arm for what was called a handball.
Wadas blasted the ensuing PK into the corner of the net and past diving Belchertown goalie Jack Mandeville to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.
“It’s just an unfortunate error,” Siano said. “It’s one of those things that you wish didn’t get called, you wish didn’t happen, but at the end of it, we’ve got to be able to capitalize on our chances, too.”
Belchertown pushed for the equalizer over the game’s remaining 20 minutes. Nicholas Adzima played a nice through ball to Kaden Houle with 12 minutes to go, but Ludlow goalie Anthony Shea got there just in time to make a sliding stop.
The Orioles’ best chance of the afternoon came with just nine minutes remaining. Senior forward Jack Holt collected possession around the 18-yard box, spun and fired a shot that banged off the crossbar and directly down to where Shea was lying after he made a diving attempt at a stop. The Ludlow keeper was able to corral possession before charging Belchertown players were able to get there.
“They certainly had some good looks in the first half, I thought we tightened things up in the second half, had some really good chances,” said Siano. “We pushed numbers and the ball just didn’t bounce our way. But I thought the guys handled it well. The soccer gods just weren’t with us.”
The Orioles now turn their attention to a challenging week of independent games to close out the regular season slate. That begins on Monday, when Pope Francis comes to town sporting the No. 1 ranking in the most recent MIAA Division 4 Power Rankings. Belchertown also hosts Northampton on Tuesday night and Frontier on Thursday.
“No sleep for the wicked,” Siano offered. “We go right from playing probably the best team in the state in Ludlow to the No. 1-ranked team in D4 [Monday] in Pope Francis. We’ve got a busy week ahead of us. We just look at this as iron sharpens iron. We’re going to be better tomorrow from what we learned today.
“And we’re getting guys healthy at the right time,” he continued. “Things are gelling at the right time.”
Sunday’s matinee served as the team’s Pink Day, as. the Orioles sported pink uniforms. Money collected from fundraising efforts throughout the day were dedicated to former Belchertown soccer player Zachary Fraleigh, who was killed in a car accident back in May.