Hanover Beats Bishop Guertin 6-0; Eighth Win in a Row

 The Bears beat Bishop Guertin 6-0 on Senior Day, stretching their winning streak to eight games.  Now 11-4, Hanover heads into Friday’s last game of the regular season with a chanced to sneak into 4^th place in the NHIAA Division One standings.

 

Senior Jack Gardner led the scoring with three goals, and scored the earliest goal for Hanover in the last 20 years, giving his team a 1-0 lead with exactly 13 seconds elapsed after the opening kickoff.  The kick was played back to Becket McCurdy, who played a long ball to Carter Guerin on the left wing.  Guerin cut inside a defender and then threaded a pass to Gardner, who finished with his usual authority and celebrated with hurried creativity.

 

The Bears dominated territorially, and patiently worked side to side to find openings.  Defensively, they did an excellent job positioning themselves “goal side”, which allowed recovery runs like Carter Guerin’s to retake the ball.  Guerin cut inside once again at the 10 minute mark and launched a long shot over the time. A minute later, Noah Winchester overlapped on the left side and helped create a corner kick when his cross was cleared by the BG defense.  Ian Smith took the corner, which found its way to Guerin, who hit a hard centering pass back to the middle.  Jack Gardner made a brilliant run into the path of the ball land deflected it into the goal for a 2-0 lead.

 

A careful buildup created two chances for Sam Calderwood 25 minutes into the match.  His first shot was blocked by a defender, but his second, assisted by Andrew McGuire, found the back of the net for a 3-0 lead.  Hanover’s defense didn’t allow a single shot during the half.  The closest that BG came was a hard shot that was blocked by Ethan Munson, taking one for the team.

Ben Woods authored a couple of bids in the late going, hitting a perfect corner that allowed Becket McCurdy to record a shot and a foul on the same play.  Ben then blazed a hard, low shot just wide of the right post.  Just before the half, Charlie Forbush made a nice defensive play getting his head onto a cross to the far post.

 

Hanover left no doubt early in the second half, as Zach Tracy set up Gardner for his third goal of the day, a penetrating run followed by a bar-down shot for his team-leading 11^th goal of the season. Tracy’s assist was his team-leading 7^th.  Becket McCurdy was a creative force in the second half.  First, he hit a chipped pass that almost picked out Track in the box.  He was then on the receiving end, getting his head to and Andrew McGuire corner kick for his second goal of the season.  McGuire’s fifth assist have him a point total of 14 (9g, 5a) that kept him one shy of Gardner.

 

Hanover’s final goal of the afternoon was superbly taken a driven ball from well outside the box by Ian Press, the first of his varsity career, made all the more valuable by his nonchalant, been-there-before celly.

 

Ty Nolon had a quiet day in goal, collecting two soft shots for his fifth clean sheet. He also added a superb catch of a high ball in traffic.  It was his seventh designated highlight catch of the season.

 

The Bears finish the regular season with a Friday road trip to Pinkerton Academy for a 4:00 kickoff.  Hanover beat the Astros in the first round of last year’s tournament, and have been watching their recent results, which have included a win over Manchester Central and a tie with Windham.  There are too many variables to indulge in any sort of productive bracketology, so the best course of action is to take care of business close to home, and wait until the late night results roll in on Friday.