By: Mohammed Ramzanali
The Westborough High School boys’ soccer team has had an amazing season with multiple players achieving high honors. Recently sophomore Tyler Stott, junior Matt Morin and senior captain Spencer Nagi won the honor of being named Division I Central Mass All Stars. Stott and Nagi also were named Central Mass All State players. Nagi also accomplished being named All Region (All New England team), which is the highest honor given to one player on the team. This player has to exemplify education, leadership and sportsmanship on and off the field.
But the Rangers aren’t stopping there. Entering the postseason as the #9 seed with a record of 9-6-3, everyone doubted the team including Worcester Telegram & Gazette’s sports reporter Carl Setterland. Multiple times Setterland predicted the boys’ soccer team would lose in their matchups but the team prevailed every time.
In the first round of the playoffs, the Rangers played a very tough game against Tantasqua in Fiskdale. Driving almost an hour and a half to play the eighth-seeded Warriors, the Rangers upset them by a score of 3-2. Nagi scored twice that game and junior Thomas VonDerVellen added a score to help propel Rangers over the Warriors.
Little did they know that their quest for a title was just beginning.
In the district quarterfinals, the Rangers played the top seeded Pioneers whose record was 14-2-4 and had received a first round bye. In an earlier match-up during the regular season the two teams drew a tie with a late score by Stott. It’s also a rematch of last year’s district quarterfinals game where the Pioneers won 2-1 This year it wasn’t the same.
Nagi scored on a corner kick from sophomore Rian Barrett 24 minutes into the game. After that point, they held on to stun #1 Saint John’s. The Rangers not only stunned the Pioneers but everyone else as they had picked the one seed over the nine seed. Setterland even tweeted after the game, “St. John’s boys’ soccer, possibly the favorite to win CMass D1, loses to Westboro in the quarterfinals. Districts are always craaazy!”
On November 9, with a full head of steam, the Rangers marched to Leominster’s historic Doyle field where they played the #4 seed Doherty. Doherty (14-3-1) had a lot of momentum coming into the district semi-final game against the Rangers because of their huge win against the fifth seeded South high school (12-4-2) who beat them last year in the district quarterfinals.
The game came down to the second half with the score 0-0 at the half. Doherty’s Dennis Asante scored from 40 yards out to put them up 1-0. With 2:23 left in the second half Barrett kicked the ball into play. It was then headed not once, not twice, but three times before it was crossed over from VonDerVellen to Stott who finished by putting it into the goal with the fourth consecutive header in that sequence. The ball didn’t touch the ground once.
In over time, WHS junior Chris Amador crossed the ball from 20 yards out to VonDerVellen who tapped it to Stott whose shot attempt hit off the near post but as Doherty’s keeper tried to stop that shot, he missed. VonDerVellen came swooping in and slide tackled the ball away from Doherty’s defender right into the net to end the game in overtime.
With the score 2-1 in favor of the Rangers, the next game on the schedule was the Central Mass Division 1 district final. This is the first team in Westborough High School history that would be playing in the district final game while in Division 1. The last time they played in a CMass final game was Division 2 in 2003 when they played Auburn and won 3-1.
November 11 was an absolutely beautiful but windy day, but the Rangers were all set to go against Wachusett for the CMass title. Wachusett, ranked seventh (9-6-3), had a lot of postseason success. Ranked third to last and having people doubt them along the way, their fire was burning just as intensely as the Rangers’ fire was. Twenty six minutes into the game, Wachusett scored first on a header by Jonah Smith to put them up 1-0.
In minute 54, Barrett cleared the ball from the corner and Nagi headed it in right past Wachusett’s keeper to level the score 1-1. Both teams played great on defense and that’s how regulation time ended. The title game needed an overtime to be decided. As soon as the ball was set into play both teams went after it. The energy on the field was the most it had been all game and it was obvious that both teams were hungry. In the fourth minute of overtime, WHS junior Greg Amador drew a penalty in the box for the Rangers. As Nagi set the ball up for the PK, he knew that he had missed two PK’s already this season and he couldn’t afford to miss this one. Keeping that in the back of his mind, Nagi took two steps and on the third he shot the ball to the right side ending the game in a victory for the Rangers.
The fans went wild . The team went wild. Twitter exploded with people congratulating the team on a historic milestone. The excitement and the love could not be contained for the boys’ soccer team. Nagi attests that most of the team’s success is because of the fans who have been trademarked as the ‘Ranger Faithful’. “There’s something special with this team and with the school. The fans come out to every game no matter how far and they are never quiet. They always have our backs. We [the boys’ soccer team] play for you guys,” praised Nagi.
However, the road to the banner hasn’t stopped yet. The Rangers will play in the state semi-finals against Amherst on Wednesday, November 16 in Nashoba. Amherst, a highly ranked Division 1 team, beat Minnechaug 2-1 to have the opportunity to play in the state semi-final game. The Rangers lost 2-1 against Minnechaug earlier in the regular season so they know it’ll be a tough match up.
“We know that they are an amazing team. They beat Minnechaug 2-1, a team that we lost to earlier in the year so they are very talented,” said Nagi. “They have an amazing defense which will give us problems because they have only given up one goal this post-season.” He believes that this will be a low scoring game, but a game which they can win with proper game planning and the Ranger Faithful in attendance.
“One game at a time” has been the mantra the Rangers have lived by this post-season and they will continue to uphold it Wednesday night as they take on Amherst.
