Photo Gallery; Soccer Standings

As the soccer season begins to wind down and the playoff pictures begin to take shape, the remaining regular season games are steadily becoming more and more important across all three major conferences. As the jockeying for playoff position continues, it’s hard to believe that some of the best games of the regular season have yet to be played.

In the MAC, with Sidwell Friends currently sitting atop the league, the race for the second seed has become a very close battle between Georgetown Day and the Potomac School. Thus, in a game of vast importance, the visiting Potomac School Panthers were determined to make a statement on why they can compete for a MAC championship.

And what a statement they made.

Scoring early and often, the Potomac School got up by three goals and never looked back, only allowing a late goal at the end of the game to beat Maret, 3-1.

The Potomac School began the game dominating possession and making it very difficult for Maret to get the ball to their strikers, Austin Mitchell or Matt Bainum. The Panthers were able to keep the ball locked into Maret’s defensive side of the field and consequently were able to get great looks on goal.

It only took six minutes for the Potomac School to score their first goal of the game by Co-captain, Andrew Jones, who is known as “AJ” by teammates and fans. Jones, the fastest player on the field Wednesday, received a great through ball from junior midfielder Jack Kingsley, and was able to chip a perfect shot right over the diving hands of Maret’s senior goalkeeper, David Sneeringer.

Not even 10 minutes later, in the 15th minute, the Potomac School had a throw-in from the left side of the field, about 40 yards out. Kingsley took the throw-in and chucked a perfect toss to Potomac’s tall playmaker, senior Matias Rodlauer, who headed the ball in the air right to the feet of co-captain Hugh Danilack, who rifled a shot from point blank in the back of the net, giving the Potomac school a commanding 2-0 lead early in the first half.

“When you play in a field with the dimensions that they have here, at Maret, you try to get an early goal, and I thought we did that,” said the Potomac school’s head coach Marcelo Valencia on his team's play. “We played fairly well in the first 20 minutes, but we relaxed a little bit and they got back into the game.”

Maret was able to settle down and begin to play much better later in the first half, due to the great play of sophomore forward Austin Mitchell, whose hustle won a lot of close balls for Maret. The tough play from Mitchell, along with great efforts from Lucas Tcheyan and Matt Bainum, allowed Maret to keep Potomac’s high-powered offense off the scoreboard the rest of the first half, keeping the early lead for he Panthers at two, as the first half ended with the Potomac School still winning, 2-0.

As the second half began, the Potomac School made a conscious effort to start off the second half the same way they started off the first, coming out and putting lots of pressure on the ball early, and keeping the ball under their possession for very long stretches of time. In almost the exact same fashion as the first half, Andrew Jones put the third and final goal for the Panthers in the back of the net off a great through ball pass from Matias Rodlauer. Jones got the ball and shot a blistering 20-yard shot past the approaching hands of Sneeringer again, giving the Panthers a 3-0 advantage.

“Andrew is one of our senior leaders. We have several seniors that have had a big impact on our team with AJ, Bennett and Matias, but AJ played well. He can play up top or in the back for us, and he’s just very versatile,” said Valencia on Jones’ two goals on the day, as well as his team’s senior leadership.

“This was a big game for us,” said senior Bennett Varney following the win. “We got off to a poor start this season. We should’ve won some games that we tied, and it was nice to get out here and show what we can do and get the results that we think we deserve.”

Maret once again fought back as well, getting a great goal late in the second half by Matt Bainum to make the score 3-1, where it would be until the final whistle, the Potomac School winning 3-1 over Maret.

Both coaches had nothing but good things to say about their teams following the game.

Coach Valencia was proud of his team’s performance, especially moving forward going up against the top team in Sidwell Friends, saying: “Sidwell is one of the better teams in the area, and we were fortunate enough to have tied them, 3-3, and we just want our boys to compete and play good soccer and we’ve been doing that over the past nine games.”

On the other side of the ball, Maret’s first-year head coach Mohan Telfer was very happy with his team’s effort, even though they were overmatched saying: “I think we responded well. We played a really good team. When you play a really good team, all you can ask your players to do is go and there and try hard, and they did. They worked hard even ‘til the very end. At the end of the day, when you play good, quality teams, they burn you with their good quality.

On his team’s improvement over the year, coach Telfer said, “We have a young team. I’m happy with the way things are going. We aren’t getting favorable results, but I’m happy with our development and our fight.”

Maret will now travel to play Sidwell Friends on Saturday, while the Potomac School travels to play the Heights on Friday.

Scoring Summary:

Maret – Matt Bainum
Saves – David Sneeringer – 8

The Potomac School – Andrew Jones – 2, Hugh Danilack
Saves – David Freemyer - 4

MAC Boys Soccer