Boys soccer enters tourney with unfinished business

Senior captain Jake McCabe added to his team-leading totals with 2 more hat tricks last week. (Mike Tureski photo)

Update: The Canton boys knocked off No. 19 Nashoba Regional 3-1 in Saturday’s tournament opener. The Bulldogs will now face the winner of Bedford vs. Silver Lake in the Round of 16 on November 10.

***

Tournament season has officially arrived, and the Canton High boys soccer team is looking forward to wiping the slate clean after what head coach Danny Erickson acknowledged was an uneven regular season.

The good news for Bulldog fans is that they are entering the postseason on a high note, after going 2-0-1 over their final three games, all on the road.

Both of their victories last week were high scoring affairs for the Bulldogs, as they combined to outscore Foxboro and nonleague Randolph 9-1. Doing most of the damage for Canton was senior standout Jake McCabe, who recorded a hat trick in both contests as he moved into second place all time on the career scoring leaderboard.

After a relatively slow start in the scoring department this season, McCabe has been on fire in recent weeks, finishing the regular season with 15 goals and 11 assists in 18 games — good for second overall in the Hockomock League with 26 total points.

Earning the No. 14 seed in the Division 2 playoff bracket, Canton will now be matched up with No. 19 Nashoba Regional in the Round of 32 with the date and time of the game to be announced.

Despite its solid but not spectacular ranking in the field of 38 teams, the Bulldogs come into this year’s tournament plenty battle tested, given what they managed to pull off last season as a No. 21 seed. Faced with no home contests, the upstart squad proceeded to rip off four straight victories across all corners of the state — beating the nos. 20, 18, 5 and 1 seeds en route to the program’s first ever state title game appearance, where they bowed out in a 2-0 loss against No. 6 West Springfield.

Although the Bulldogs graduated several players from last year’s Cinderella run, they still have a number of key players on the roster who had a hand in that run, led by McCabe along with seniors Carson Eagles and Ashton Cetoute.

“I think we’re a team that as we head to the state tournament we can compete with anybody that we play,” said Erickson. “And yet, at the same time, if we’re not on our game we could very easily have a very short run. But I’m hopeful and confident that we could make some noise.”

This year’s group is also aided by the emergence of several new varsity contributors, including sophomore Owen Morrissey, who has earned a starting role with his solid play in the midfield, and senior Drew Garrett, who has been very productive as a starting forward.

The Bulldogs have also benefited from the steady presence of goalkeeper Nick Ruggeri, younger brother of last year’s starter Gio Ruggeri. Nick has started every game this season and has racked up five shutouts to go along with a solid goals against average of 1.60.

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=94947

Posted by Jay Turner on Nov 5 2022. Filed under High School, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.