MANCHESTER – Belmont boys’ soccer coach Michael Foley knew Wednesday’s clash with No. 1 Gilford in the D-III semifinal would be an uphill battle. The Raiders (14-3-2) entered play with only two losses all season, both at the hands of the Golden Eagles. Wednesday night was no different, as Gilford (19-0-0) advanced to the championship game with a comprehensive 4-0 victory.
It was an inauspicious start for Belmont. Six minutes into play, Gilford’s Thomas Donnelly found the back of the net off of a throw in to make it 1-0. The Raiders couldn’t generate much offense in response. Then in the 35th minute, the Golden Eagles doubled their lead thanks to a goal from Haukur Karlsson.
“What we’ve preached all season long is against them, you can’t give up an early goal,” Foley said. “You gotta hold them as long as you can off the board. If you give up something early, it just jump starts them, the floodgates open for them. This season all three games we’ve given up a goal in the first eight minutes of a game, and you just can’t do that.”
Things didn’t get much better in the second half, as Gilford tacked on two more goals in the 52nd and 61st minutes to put the game completely out of reach.
Overall though, Belmont’s season was a major success, even though it may not have been expected at first. On the heels of a 3-11-1 season, Foley only had 11 players show up to the first day of practice this year. There was a sense of uncertainty about how things could turn around. But as other players returned from vacations and summer jobs, things started to gel.
“Once we got everyone together, we kind of found a little niche and started to roll,” Foley said. “[We were] able to put things together day by day and have fun. Had a lot of fun.”
Aside from the three games played against Gilford, the Raiders allowed more than one goal in a game just once. Much of that was attributable to the play of senior goalkeeper Jacobb Bivens who’s played every game for Foley in his four years at Belmont.
In addition to Bivens, Foley graduates six other players off of this year’s roster. But he’s optimistic about what the future holds. Half of his team this year was sophomores.
“It’s hard to get to a semifinal. It’s hard to get to a final,” he said. “And these guys understand really now what hard work is. It was fun. It was a lot of fun this year.”