RallyNorth.net

Sat, Nov 08, 2008 03:00 PM @ Pinkerton

Team	1st	2nd	Final
Playoff Game
Concord	0	0	0
Pinkerton	1	0	1

Pinkerton pulls through

Saturday, November, 08 By Alan Siegel
Staff writer

EXETER – The sight of Kenny Kolbeck sprinting up field late in the second half summed up his team’s afternoon.

Pinkerton had a slim lead. But there was no letting up. Not this year.

“It was nerve-racking,” Kolbeck said. “But we’ve got a lot of character on this team. In the end we pulled through.”

In the end, the top-seeded Astros defeated seventh-seeded Concord 1-0 in the Class L final. A spirited crowd at William Ball Stadium watched coach Kerry Boles’ club win its first state championship since 1995.

It was a redemptive victory for the Astros. In both 2005 and 2006, they fell in the final. Last season, despite entering the tournament with a perfect record, they lost in the semis.

This year, their only blemish on the season was a 2-1 loss to the Crimson Tide on Oct. 17. They finish the season with an impressive 19-1 record.

“Our biggest goal this year was winning Game 20. That’s what they wanted to do,” Boles said, of course knowing No. 20 would be the title game. “It didn’t matter, Game 8, Game 12, we were focused on trying to win Game 20. As it turned out, losing to Concord was actually a blessing. It seemed to be a self-motivator.”

The Astros didn’t need much extra motivation yesterday. They out-shot Concord 18-3, only scoring once but continually making the kind of aggressive runs that Kolbeck, a defender, attempted in the waning minutes despite his heavy legs.

“It’s the one thing about these guys, no matter how much you tell them, how much you fight against them,” Boles said. “You don’t need to go forward all the time. But these guys just want to go forward for 80 minutes. As it turns out, our offense is our best defense.”

Junior midfielder Zach Wheeler scored Pinkerton’s lone goal in the 27th minute. After a corner kick, he received a pass from junior forward Mike Wanelik and slammed the ball into the top right corner of the net from close range.

“There was a big scrap in the middle. I just saw it,” Wheeler said. “There was a deflection off someone and it just sat in the middle.”

Afterward, Wheeler smiled and exhaled.

“It’s such a big relief just to get it off our chest,” he said. “There’s been a lot of pressure the last couple years.”

The goal capped a year in which Wheeler grew tremendously as a player, Boles said.

“He just went to get it,” Boles said of the play. “One of the things we worked on with him is he’s such a big guy, but he’s such a nice guy. He needed to be more aggressive. About half way through the season he became much more aggressive.”

Seniors Omar Khartabil, Donald Dane and Aaron Earle were excellent in the victory. As was two-time Eagle-Tribune All-Star Kolbeck, who said he hopes to play college soccer at UMass or Providence College.

“Being a defender it’s hard to put up numbers and stats in order for people to understand how much he means to this team and how good he is,” Boles said. “He is everything to Pinkerton Academy.”

Of 80 possible games over the past four years, Boles said, Kolbeck has started 79 of them.

“Kenny Kolbeck, hands down is the best soccer player in New Hampshire,” Boles said. “There’s no question about it.”

Kolbeck himself chose to play up his teammates.

“It was awesome,” he said. “These guys are an awesome group of individuals.”

As Kolbeck said, they pulled through in the end. That’s what mattered most.