SALEM, N.H. — The Lebanon High boys soccer team’s season ended with a heartbreaker on Monday night, falling 3-0 on penalty kicks to Campbell High after a 1-1 draw in the NHIAA Division II semifinals at Salem High School.
After 80 minutes of regulation soccer and another 30 of overtime, with both teams having chances to end it, players on each side lined up 35 yards from goal, their hopes of advancing to the state final resting on spot kicks.
The last act of Monday’s battle belonged to the No. 2-seeded, defending D-II state champion Cougars and senior goalkeeper Adam Correau.
The senior stepped up first and nailed his squad’s first kick, sending an off-speed ball to the right of Raiders junior keeper Bently Lang. He then denied Lebanon sophomore Jesse Madory on the Raiders’ first try.
Campbell senior Matthew DeCarli followed with another score, and Correau thwarted senior Liam Sullivan on the third-ranked Raiders’ next attempt.
Senior Brady Marcotte put the Cougars up 3-0, and with Lebanon (11-3-3) needing a goal to stay alive, senior Henry Souza sent his shot over the crossbar, sealing Campbell’s win.
“Penalties are cruel. Penalties are joyful. Today, they were cruel,” Lebanon coach Rob Johnstone said after the loss, acknowledging that Monday’s result was “fair.”
“I think this game was as equal as a soccer game can be at this level,” Johnstone added. “We had great stretches. They had great stretches. … So the general feeling is if you’re going to have your season end, you want to be able to say, ‘We did everything that we could,’ and I think Campbell can say that, too.”
During a contest that had nice action throughout, the Raiders had a golden opportunity to strike first.
With 10½ minutes remaining in the first half, Madory maneuvered through midfield around multiple Cougar defenders and sent a nice ball to Sullivan, who had a clean shot inside the 18-yard box. Sullivan then sent a grounder off the left post.
That near-miss opened the door for the Cougars (12-2-4) to draw first blood.
Campbell senior Nicolas Noviello drew a penalty kick with 8:59 left in the opening half. A Noviello-delivered corner kick was headed clear by the Lebanon defense, but the ball found Cougar teammate Caiden Lavoie just inside the box.
The sophomore sent the ball back toward Noviello, who made a run inside the box and was taken down, drawing up the penalty. Marcotte buried the spot kick in the bottom right corner of the net to give Campbell a 1-0 lead.
The Cougars carried their one-goal edge into the second half, but it didn’t last long. Less than seven minutes in, Campbell played the ball back to Correau, who passed it right to Lebanon senior Austin Engert, and he beat the Cougar keeper and finished the ball into an open net to tie it at 1-1.
As the second half ticked away, both squads fought to end it in regulation — and there was probably no better chance than one Lebanon earned in the waning seconds.
The Raiders sent a high ball deep into the 18-yard box in the final half-minute, and Sullivan headed it past Correau, leaving a vacated net for Lebanon junior Tucker Green, with some Cougars defenders swarming at the top of the 6-yard box. The loose ball trickled to Green, who was hurried by Marcotte into shooting high over the net, sending the game into overtime.
Like most of regulation, both teams tried their hardest but could not find the back of the net in either extra session, setting the stage for penalties and ultimately the end of Lebanon’s season.
“I can’t ask anything more of my team. I mean, they played great,” Johnstone said, noting that his team did not have a bad practice all season and was willing to do whatever was necessary to win.
“Players moved positions. Guys were in the rotation. They weren’t. Their minutes changed. Never, never did the level of effort or engagement in training stop, and that’s why they were in this position at the end.”
