Soccer News

WESTPORT — The beat goes on for the Staples girls soccer team.

The Wreckers netted two second-half goals to put away a feisty Greenwich side to improve to 6-0 on the young season en route to a 3-0 FCIAC victory over the Cardinals on Wednesday at Wakeman Field.

“In the first half, Greenwich fought well,” said Staples head coach Barry Beattie, who has led the program to a great deal of success during his tenure in Westport. “In the second half, I thought our quality shone and by the way the two goals were scored it was plain to see.”

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GREENWICH — Rivals typically bring out the best in each other and Greenwich was certainly in top form in its showdown against boys soccer foe Staples on Wednesday.

Consistently applying pressure, the Cardinals generated a pair of penalty kicks in the first half against their nemisis — and they capitalized on both.

Scoring on two penalty kicks made the different in this duel, which saw Greenwich post an impressive 2-0 victory at Cardinal Stadium.

With the significant win, the Cardinals improved their record to 4-1-2 overall, giving them 14 points in the FCIAC standings. Staples’ records stands at 4-2-1 (13 points) following the loss.

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STAMFORD—The Stamford boys soccer team was treading water, down two goals at halftime to Darien.

The life preserver came from an usual place as Stamford took advantage of two miscues by the Darien keeper and defense in the second half, rallying for three goals in the final 40 minutes and a surprising 4-3 win.

Kenly Lalanne scored all four Stamford goals, tallying three in the second half.

“I think this was pretty good. That has been our M.O. from the start of the year, playing much better in the second half,” Stamford coach Mario Caminiti said. “Today, we did not start out mentally ready. Our pregame warmup had me very concerned because we were not really focused. We talked about it at halftime and I told them I was depending on their leadership to fix it and they did it.”

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NORWALK — Westhill sophomore goalkeeper Nathanael Aybar wants nothing more than to prove himself to his coach and teammates.

On Monday night, in a battle of FCIAC boys soccer unbeatens, Aybar won them over in a big way.

The first-year varsity starter turned away seven of 11 shots in the second half, leading Westhill to a 3-2 victory over Norwalk at Testa Field.

“It was actually really crazy in that second half,” Aybar said. “This is my first year starting after I earned the spot, but my defense was really great today.”

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DANBURY — After what he considered a lackluster first half from his team, Danbury boys soccer coach Anthony Howard challenged his team at halftime, urging them to be more aggressive and play more as a cohesive unit.

It did not take long for the Hatters to heed Howard’s advice, breaking the scoreless deadlock by scoring three times in the first 14 minutes of the second half en route to a convincing 5-1 win over rival Ridgefield Monday afternoon.

“I didn’t think it could get any worse because that first half was really, really bad. Sloppy and not ready to play and not up for the game and the first half was not good enough,” Howard said. “I spoke to them at halftime, said what I needed to say and they responded. They are kids and that’s all you want is for them to respond and they came out great in the second half.”

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