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Defense the key to Georgetown's turnaround

Thursday, October, 25 By John Shimer
Staff writer

A year ago Georgetown was wrapping up a monumental second-half collapse in which the Royals lost seven of their last eight games to fall out of tournament contention at 4-9-4 (the only other game was a 0-0 tie).

In just a year's time that same Georgetown program looks to be one of the most dangerous teams heading into the Division 3 state tournament at 9-5-4.

The catalyst for the remarkable turnaround has been the stalwart efforts of the defense.

Led by All-League goalie Evan Weagle, sweeper Josh Ingram, stopper Dean Nemeroff and defenders Peter Nowak, Cam Moyer and Chris Pinto, the Royals allowed only 20 goals in 18 games (1.11 GAA) and only twice allowed more than two (one of those games being to CAL Large champions Wilmington).

"I can't stop everything that comes at me, but my guys in front of me do a great job at preventing most of the shots, and then they rely on me to do the rest," Weagle said. "The difference this year is the team chemistry; everyone has blended in together and knows their roles, which has really paid off."

Weagle's stout defensive mates did not enter the season as a unit that had played much together in recent years. The Royals in fact had to fill in two big holes, one of which was vacated by graduated all-star sweeper Bobby Melideo.

Georgetown did not miss a beat though, as former midfield/forward Josh Ingram stepped into the position, and also earned an all-star selection for the Royals.

"I took a look at our team as a whole in tryouts, and Josh was right at the top of my list to take over at sweep," Georgetown coach Ron Comeau said. "The decision was really a no-brainer because he plays aggressive yet clean soccer, never backing down from a challenge, which gives him an extra step to the ball. So far he has proved me right."

Although new to the challenge of the sweeper's role at the high school level, Ingram did have some experience from his youth soccer days.

"At the beginning of the season, coach asked if anyone would volunteer, so I gladly stepped in to do it for the team," said the physical junior.

"It was just like old times," said Nemeroff, Ingram's other center mate. "On our U-12 Josh and I were stopper-sweeper then as well, and everything jelled between the communication and our roles."

Despite the different mindset, Ingram enjoyed the new pressures.

"I like the change, there's not as much action, but it's an entirely different scenario," Ingram said. "On offense you need to score to win, but defense has more pressure because you save the game."

Once again like a year ago, Georgetown jumped off to another good start at 5-1-2. However, the team's character was tested in a night game against Triton in which the Vikings scored three times, handing the Royals their second loss.

"We found out in that game that we were not as good as we thought and there was still plenty we needed to work on," Ingram said of the team's performance that evening. "It was the first time our defense split, and we found that as a unit we were much better."

A 1-0 win over Lynnfield in which the Royals did not allow CAL player of the year Mike Kennedy to get any points, and 0-0 tie against the ninth ranked team in the state Masconomet in which Weagle made 22 saves ensued. Finally, the Royals were starting to grasp what the team was capable of accomplishing.

"When we beat Lynnfield, which qualified us for the state tournament, it really hadn't hit us because this was the first time for all of us making it to the post season," Weagle said. "Now that our regular season is over it is starting to sink in that we are still going to be playing. It's been an amazing and somewhat surprising season, but we're ready to make some noise now in the playoffs."