Deerfield took care of business at home in their penultimate game on Wednesday and moved one step away from the completion of a wildly successful season. A well-coached Loomis teach played tenacious defense, always moving hard to the ball and giving DA’s offense little time to make decisions. But Big Green’s defense rarely let them get close to the goal, with center-backs Luke Shields ’22 and Matt Dillon ’23 repeatedly stealing balls and distributing them to the outside, while center-back Jake Rohan ’24 used his heavy foot to punt balls down the field, reversing Loomis’s momentum. Sophomore Jason Bannerman made his debut at center-back in the second half and acquitted himself well in the new position. The few shots the Pelican were able to get off were cooly handled by team captain Jack Chorske ’22. Deerfield’s offense started a bit flat-footed by quickly found the late-season form it displayed over the weekend against Williston. Ninth-grader Connor Coutu got the scoring started in the 18th minute with his first goal of the season, turning a seeing-eye pass from striker Winston Cho ’24 into slicing shot from the right wing position that sailed over the keeper’s head. Ten minutes later Cho made it 2-0 thanks to a great through pass from midfielder MacGregor Hynds ’25 that put him between the keeper and the net. By the second half, Deerfield had found a tempo that helped it get ahead of Loomis’s relentless coverage, as when holding midfield Shogo O’Connor ’25 popped a ball over their middle line and forward Jack Willet ’23 immediately volleyed it up over their back line, setting up striker Alex Rolfe ’23 for a great one-on-one opportunity he capitalized on. The team looks forward to enjoying its final practices together before taking the field on Saturday morning to achieve its Day One goal: beating Choate.