NTL BOYS' SOCCER: NEB CAN'T FIND THE NET IN 1-0 LOSS TO ATHENS (2025-08-27)
BY CHRIS MANNINGNorthern Tier Sports ReportROME — Northeast Bradford boys’ soccer had their chances against Athens on Wednesday, but in the end it was the Wildcats capitalizing as they rolled out of Panther Lane with a 1-0 win during NTL action.
It was an opportunity NEB coach Scott Merritt felt his team let pass them by.
“In the first half there’s a lot of opportunities that were in the attack and we did not follow through as a group,” Merritt said. “It’s one or two in the box and several others walking or jogging on their way there instead of getting there, not crashing through. There were several there that were tipped off the goalies fingers where there was no one there to touch it afterwards, and those opportunities cost you. In adult soccer it isn’t 6-0, 6-2, real adult soccer is 1-0, 2-0, and 2-1, and (Athens) swarmed the ball well, they got after it. I don’t think we lacked enthusiasm or effort, but we definitely didn’t get everywhere we needed to.”
Athens’ Chase Ingram hit on a 22-yard early in the second half and that proved to be the difference in the game.
“My hats off to Athens, they did a great job,” Merritt said. “They swarmed, they did what they needed to do, and they left us areas that we didn’t capitalize on.”
NEB had the edge in shots 8-5 and corner kicks 10-7, but Panther keeper Gavin Puza made two saves.
Zach Fisher had eight saves to get the clean sheet for the Wildcats.
“I felt like we weren’t dominated, and we didn’t dominate,” remarked Merritt. “I thought it was a rally good match-up, just missed opportunities on ours, and they capitalized on one.”
The Panthers controlled things early as they forced Athens into their own end.
A Brody Allen shot at the 21-minute mark was snuffed out by Fisher, while Athens’ best chance early ended on an offsides call.
Athens’ Eli Vogell made a good attempt at the goal with 9:30 to play in the opening half but it was just wide.
NEB’s Tyler Kuhn then got aggressive late in the half, nearly putting the Panthers up 1-0 with 45 seconds to play in the first. Fisher made a diving stop to deflect his low, hard attempt away but nobody was there to for the rebound.
“If any of those go in as a goal it’s a totally different game,” said Merritt.
Then, at the 36:41 mark, Ingram tried his foot from outside the box, and hit the high far corner to put the Wildcats up.
NEB had several good attempts at the equalizer as an Eli Stanton header off corner kick was knocked away by Fisher.
Fisher then deflected away two more attempts by Kuhn, but his biggest save came with 11:50 to play when Kuhn found Stanton behind the defense. Fisher came out to challenge Stanton, and was able to deflect the shot out of the box.
The final NEB chance to score came with 3:10 left when a cross to a streaking Stanton was snuffed out by Fisher.
NEB will look to bounce back when they host Montgomery on Saturday with an 11 a.m. start, and Merritt is hoping to see some more cohesion from his team.
“Don’t allow yourself to sit back and watch a play,” he said. “We went over it in some practice about movements and positioning, and we really didn’t do what we practiced. We’ll go into a little bit more of a slow moving, walk through scenarios again, and then just keep touching on the fact of remember what this feels like, because you let that happen. It’s not that they didn’t work hard, they didn’t finish, and that’s the difference.”
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PHOTOS BY CHRIS MANNING— —
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