Boys soccer: Ian McDonald’s game-winning goal lifts Belchertown past Northampton, 2-1 (PHOTOS)

NORTHAMPTON — The Belchertown boys soccer team found itself in a 1-0 hole at the halftime break, but knew the script could be flipped if it ramped up its intensity in the second half.

The Orioles responded with a dominant final 40 minutes of play and found the back of the net twice to escape Northampton with a 2-1 independent win over the Blue Devils on Monday evening at David Wright Stadium.

Junior Ian McDonald played hero for Belchertown, as his goal with just over 10 minutes left in the game stood as the game winner. After a free kick fell at the feet of Tanner Lockwood, he connected with McDonald who had plenty of space to let rip a shot.

McDonald took a touch before blasting a low boot by the dive of goalie Salem Gregory to give the Orioles the win.

“We had a lot of good chances leading up to that, and we needed a goal there,” McDonald said. “I just happened to get an open look, and I saw an opening and shot it. I was just thinking, ‘Alright, now we got this lead. We can’t lose it.’”

Christopher Rivers scored Belchertown’s first goal, which was assisted by Trevor Weiss.

Northampton’s lone goal came off the foot of Sam Busone, who capitalized on a hand ball called inside the box that awarded the Blue Devils a penalty kick. Busone confidently booted it by Jack Mandeville to give Northampton an early lead midway through the first frame.

Although the Blue Devils got on the board first, they had to fight off a plethora of Orioles pressure.

Belchertown began to press up into Northampton’s defensive third of the field and made it difficult for the Blue Devils to find clean passing windows to break out – which was part of head coach Zach Siano’s adjustments at the break. Those adjustments, along with the leadership of seniors like Rivers, Weiss, Tanner Lockwood, and Rainer Kristensen, led to the huge swing in momentum.

“A lot of it comes down to effort, but also the senior leadership with some of these guys,” Siano said. “All these guys pushed everyone a little bit harder. We know that Northampton is young like we are, but we thought we might be a little bit deeper. We kept our subs fresh, and we pressed them in their final third more to  make them uncomfortable. I thought the high press worked out really well in the second 40 [minutes].”

Several things factored into the difference in halves for the Blue Devils. One, Northampton has an extremely young team, so holding the four-time defending Western Mass. champions down for an entire game is a tall task. But also, the Blue Devils let the Orioles dictate how the game was going to be played. And third, Northampton missed several quality scoring chances early on.

“It was frustrating. I thought we should’ve had a couple more goals in the first half based on our quality of play,” Holt said. “In the second half, we got into their game, which was more direct. They do that really well, they’re physical, they’re fast, and they caused problems. We played their style of soccer and that’s credit to them for sticking with it.”

The only real issue with the youth and inexperience on the Blue Devils sideline is the fact that they’re still searching for the kind of team they want to be. Belchertown’s aggressive identity asserted itself as the game progressed, and Northampton has yet to find an identity of its own.

“We have a young team, so it’s easy to say we have a young team. Sometimes we had six freshmen out there,” Holt said. “It could be a maturity thing and an experience thing, maybe. Belchertown’s a program that has a culture of winning. They have a certain way they wanna play and how they wanna do things, and we’re still trying to figure out our identity. We were very much off our game in the second half.”

Part of why Northampton didn’t cash in on its opportunities is because of the stellar goalie play of Mandeville. The junior keeper was able to make a handful of difficult stops in the first half to stay withing striking distance.

All season Mandeville has been a solid contributor, not just as a goalie, but as a communicator and conductor of the offense.

“Jack Mandeville is going out there, and the score is not indicative of how he commands the cage back there,” Siano said. “I thought he did a good job of commanding from the back and pushing it up with our center backs. We’ve talked about him being more of a leader back there. I look at Jack as an extension of myself, and he’s just been rock-solid back there controlling the pace of play. He gives us a huge advantage to be able to build things up from the back.”

Northampton (7-6-1) sits at No. 33 in the latest MIAA power rankings. Their record currently holds six losses, all of which have been by one goal. Holt knows his team is right there, but they don’t have a lot of time to get over the hump and end up on the other end of these defeats.

“We’re all just trying to look in the mirror and figure it out,” Holt said. “We can all be better, and the message today was that there isn’t much time left until postseason – so we’ve gotta figure it out right now. All of our losses have been by one goal, but we need to be on the other side of those one-goal games.”

Belchertown (7-5-3) is primed for a run at a fifth consecutive Western Mass. title. The Orioles just got Weiss back in their lineup, and leading scorer Joseph Yoon is set to return by the end of the week. They’re peaking at the right time as the postseason looms large.

“We’re still down some bodies, but we seem to be getting healthier,” Siano said. “Trevor and Joseph, they’re two key cogs in our system. We’re getting healthy at the right time, but we also look for the challenge. We’ve won four [Western Mass.] championships in a row, and we wanna defend it. And they’re gonna go down swinging if they’re gonna go down. We look at Western Mass. as the next challenge, then we move on to the state tournament from there.”