HANOVER — Things were just not clicking for the Hanover High Bears as they were blanked at home by the reigning NHIAA Division I state champions, the unbeaten Pinkerton Academy Astros, 4-0, on Thursday evening.
“Pinkerton is really aggressive, and they use that to their advantage and sort of jumped on us early,” Hanover Head Coach Doug Kennedy said. “We weren’t on tonight, but that was a very, very good team we played.”
Thursday’s performance was a stark contrast to their play earlier this week against another D-I powerhouse, the Bishop Guertin Cardinals, who have only one loss this season, which occurred last week when they fell 2-1 to Pinkerton.
“We didn’t win, but we had a very strong game. We were on, things were clicking, and practically the difference was an inch,” Kennedy said, of his team’s 2-1 loss to the Cardinals on Tuesday.
This week’s matchups against teams with a combined record of 19-1-3 have given the Bears, now 4-5-2, a chance to see how they measure up to top divisional foes.
“Clearly, Tuesday night was, that was, ‘Okay, we can play with these guys.’ Tonight, you could look at it quickly and say, ‘Oh God, we can’t play with them.’ But I think the girls are mature enough to know that they can come out of a game like this,” Kennedy said.
Early on in the first half on Thursday, the Bears held their own on the scoreboard, with some nice saves from goalkeeper Lily Tine. But it was apparent early that it would take a lot for Hanover to mount offensive pressure.
When the Bears had possession, they were unable to string together passes to consistently get the ball deep into the Astros’ territory. “I thought in the first half, a lot of the time we were under pressure so much that we were just hitting the ball without a target,” Kennedy said.
As the first half drew on, Pinkerton’s offensive pressure continued to mount. It finally broke through with just over 25 minutes remaining in the half after drawing a penalty kick and finishing it to take a 1-0 lead.
Up one goal, the Astros continued to ramp up their pressure and scored again about seven-and-a-half minutes later after a fortuitous deflection went to Cali Lockwood, who put the ball past Tine. Pinkerton took that 2-0 lead into halftime.
The Bears did snap out of their offensive funk early in the second half and had some of their best chances of the game. “We did reset a little bit, and I saw a little bit more of what I know we can do,” Kennedy said of his team’s offense in the second half, but acknowledged, “It didn’t hold up.”
As the final score suggests, the Bears were unable to convert any of their offensive opportunities in the second half. In the meantime, the Astros added two more of their own to take the 4-0 win.
Kennedy indicated that his team is aware of what they are capable of, and if they can play to that level, they will have some confidence heading into the postseason.
Hanover will hit the road on Tuesday to take a crack at Concord in hopes of halting its two-game losing streak and picking up some momentum in the final weeks of the regular season.
