In Sunday afternoon’s New Hampshire Soccer Conference Division IV championship game at the Henniker Soccer Club Fields, Norwich-based Touchline Boys Soccer Club not only took to the field with a plan but coolly stuck to it, even after taking that figurative opening shot to the noggin.
Ultimately, top-ranked Touchline capped off an unbeaten summer season with a 6-1 win over No. 3 Peterborough IV. But it was the lower seed that landed the first telling blow.
With the game barely three minutes old, Peterborough midfielder Micah Black drove a long diagonal pass from the right sideline to the far side of the Touchline penalty area, where teammate Max Sturges poked it free from a Touchline defender, squared up to goal and cracked one inside the left post for a 1-0 lead.
At the 18-minute mark, Peterborough (10-5-1) had a glittering chance to double the advantage when a 60-yard Aiden Hall direct kick disappeared in the glare of the sun and landed behind the Touchline defense. Black zoomed in from the right flank and touched the ball past Touchline keeper Anthony Stoffel, only to miss high from a wide angle.
Even as Black’s shot was sailing over the bar, Touchline coach Rob Grabill had a platoon of eight substitutes warming up along the sideline and preparing to enter the game, as previously planned, at approximately the 20-minute mark.
The coach’s response to the Peterborough near miss? “Sub!”
On trotted the next wave, off trotted the starters. And, slowly but surely, the tide turned.
On the field, both David Seigne and Sander Macaulay had solid chances at goal for Touchline (13-0-2). Off the field, the starters calmly watched the game, talked among themselves, and awaited their next shift.
“We’re playing for 80,” Grabill commented from the sideline. “These guys know that.”
With just under 10 minutes remaining in the half, Touchline’s starting group returned to the field—with center back Sam Pych notably shifting to a defensive midfield position—andwithin five minutes the one-goal deficit had turned into a 2-1 lead.
Sam Strohbehn both started and finished the first goal-scoring sequence, an eight-pass beauty. Strohbehn won the ball just inside midfield, combined quickly with both Marcus Helble and Seth Stadheim, and ultimately converted a Pych feed with a 16-yard ripper. Three minutes later, Stadheim broke free of his mark at the back post for a full-volley finish of a Casey Starr corner kick.
It was a lead Touchline chose not to protect so much as aggressively build upon. In the game’s first 20 minutes, Peterborough created four shots on target and earned a corner kick. Over the final 60 minutes, both those numbers were zeroes. Touchline, meanwhile, ended up with 10 shots on target and 11 corner kicks, all of them coming after the 20th minute.
“The first goal wasn’t a problem,” Grabill said. “There was no carping or finger-pointing. The guys just kept working.”
Three goals in a nine-minute stretch early in the second half all but settled matters.
In the 51st minute, Helble played a perfectly weighted through ball to Starr, who took one preparation touch before firing a shot off the left post and in.
At 54 minutes, Macaulay sprung Seigne for the game’s bravest goal. Peterborough keeper Mather Kipka raced off his line and attempted to crank Macaulay’s offering back upfield, only to have a hard-charging Seigne absorb the blast in his stomach, run on to the ricochet and tap it home from close range. At 60 minutes, Macaulay slalomed his way through three Peterborough defenders before laying a pass across the goal mouth to Seigne for a much more comfortable close-range finish.
A Macaulay-to-Pych corner connection completed the day’s scoring in the 80th minute
“The goals we scored were a function of depth and team play,” Grabill said. “The guys played attractively, they played unselfishly, and they worked hard. Those are the things you look for.”
Saturday’s match marked Touchline’s 10th consecutive trip to the NHSC finals and its sixth championship win. Touchline also won the Division IV crown in 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015.
Josh Dion scored four goals as Pembroke 2 defended its NHSC Division V crown with a 5-3 win over Touchline-Norwich V in the afternoon’s opening game.
Top-seeded Pembroke (9-0) led 2-0 at the half before Dylan Bradley put No. 2 Touchline (12-4) on the board in the 46th minute. Two goals in the next three minutes boosted the Pembroke lead to 4-1, before a Blake Palmer penalty kick pulled Touchline within 4-2 with 26 minutes remaining.
Dion’s fourth goal of the day, a half-volley from 20 yards out that dipped into the upper right corner, completed the game’s scoring in the 62nd minute. The finals appearance was the fourth straight for Touchline V, which won the championship in both 2013 and 2014.