From the opening whistle Deerfield attacked aggressively and successfully. The team made several drives down the wings before — in the 10th minute — Young Gun Lee ’19 scored the first of what would be his three goals in the first half. Jarod Harrington ’19 began the movement down the right wing by intercepting the ball and playing it forward to Nolan Zusi ’19, who crossed to the back post where Lee collected the ball and struck it home.
Wilbraham responded in the 23rd minute when their center-forward ran on to a through-ball down the center and slipped the ball past goalkeeper Peter Sanford ’20. In his first start for the varsity team, Sanford would go on to make a clutch of important saves during the remainder of the game.
Deerfield responded well, and Lee beat the Wilbraham keeper in the 34th minute and again in the 39th minute — the latter a penalty-kick after Lee was brought down in the box.
The second half saw four Deerfield players score their first-ever goals for the varsity: in the 7th minute, Tynan Creagh ’22 picked up a rebound around 15 yards out, shot and then followed in to jam home the rebound; in the 20th minute, Tyler Kelly ’19 sent a right-footed blast from the top of the box past the opposing keeper; three minutes later Sam Bronckers ’20 shot from the right and then buried the rebound to lift Deerfield’s score to 6; and Billy Curtis ’21 rounded out the scoring with a well-executed header off Nolan Zusi’s curling free-kick from 25 yards.
A solid team effort from a group that is gearing up for three big matches — Williston, NMH and Choate — in the final 10 days of the season.