DUXBURY – Vermont’s boys soccer tournament has featured stunning upsets over the decades, with No. 16 Burke and Lyndon beating the top seeds and No. 15 Lake Region ousting a No. 2 Stowe squad that was the eight-time defending champ five years ago.
On Tuesday Otter Valley made the trek to Harwood with hopes of being that next great giant-killer, but the Highlanders quashed those dreams by burying three goals in the first seven minutes. When all the damage was done, a calculator was required to add up the stats and a 16-0 final resembled more of a football score.
Second-seeded Harwood has now fired home 26 unanswered goals after recording its ninth clean sheet of the season. The two-time defending champs extended their winning streak to 11 matches and recorded the largest margin of victory in the state’s boys soccer tournament history. They surpassed the previous feats of rival Stowe, which cruised to 13-0 first-round playoff victories during each of the past three years and was a 14-0 winner over Windsor during the 2013 playdowns.
The U.S. women’s team famously took some heat during a 13-0 victory over Thailand at the 2019 World Cup, drawing accusations of running of the score unnecessarily. During Tuesday’s scenario, coach Yalicki quickly cycled in all of his substitutes and was happy to see both Noah Zumberge and Sebastien Binkerd score their first varsity goals. And even though the floodgates opened quickly, the Highlanders coach noted that his players showed respect for an Otters side featuring eight eighth-graders and four freshmen.
“We were trying to keep the guys moving,” Yalicki said. “Last year we had a bye, so we kind of sat around for the week and played later in the week. So it was good to get guys in positions and get out there and run a little bit. And then we tried to look at some potential combinations of players for next year’s team and let those younger guys play a little bit. We put some of our wide players in the middle and we made the most of it. And the guys did well to play the right way most of the way through.”
The Highlanders carried an 8-0 lead into halftime against the Otters and spread the wealth offensively after the break as Yalicki inserted a handful of players into different positions. Anthony Caforia recorded a hat trick, while Brycen Scharf (three assists), Emanuel Mego-Vasquez, Wilson Stack and Charlie Lamonia contributed two goals apiece.
“We did really good scoring today and keeping the ball in the middle,” Mego-Vasquez said. “We had our chances and we finished them.”
Harwood racked up 105 goals last year and stretched its unbeaten streak to 36 matches on Sept. 6 before losing back-to-back games and falling to 1-2-1. For awhile it wasn’t clear which upperclassmen would step into leadership roles alongside Scharf, who has been a multi-year standout. Luckily for Yalicki, a slew of players who weren’t routine starters last year rose to the occasion and made huge impacts on the pitch to fill some major voids.
“We have guys who were on the team last year but played much lesser roles,” Yalicki said. “And they’ve stepped up so much and that’s just helped us play the right way. Most teams and coaches that I talk to after the game are like, ‘You guys are still playing that Harwood way.’ And that’s because those guys were ready for their turn to run the show and they’ve all played really well.”
The Highlanders’ individual scoring race has been tight all fall, with Scharf (13 goals, seven assists) and Mego-Vasquez (12 goals, four assists) leading the way.
“The scoring is close and it went back and forth in the beginning,” Yalicki said. “The team is unselfish and that’s the most important thing. If players on our team make good forward runs and pick their head up and pass in the box, the goal could come from anybody. And that makes us harder to play against.”
Caforia started Tuesday’s scoring in the third minute and Mego-Vasquez doubled the lead two minutes later on a Scharf assist. John Butler set up Scharf for a 3-0 cushion and the Scarf added an unassisted goal in the 11th minute before assisting Lamonia in the 18th minute.
Stack finished off a Will Andrus pass in the 23rd minute and scored again in solo fashion a minute afterwards. Alec Sands capped the first-half scoring with an unassisted goal in the 37th minute. Following an Otter Valley own goal, Harwood hit the double-digit mark for scoring in the 43rd minute when Scharf assisted Caforia.
Caforia completed his hat trick three minutes later and then Kretz assisted Mego-Vasquez during the next minute. Lamonia tallied his second goal in the 60th minute on a feed from Andrus, who stretched the lead to 14-0 two minutes later on an offering from Binkerd. Zumberge assisted Binkerd in the 70th minute and added a goal of his own with just over a minute remaining.
First-half goalie Ayden Winfield (10 saves) and second-half keeper Brody Lathrop (eight saves) combined efforts for the Otters, who end the season at 0-15.
“We had no program last year and we’re in a rebuild mode, so our goal is to just keep learning from some of these skilled teams we’ve played and get better and come back with a vengeance,” Otter Valley coach Brent Wilbur said. “A lot of the kids are motivated and ready to come back for next year.”
Keeper Sheldon Frank stopped two shots for Harwood, which improves to 12-2-1 and will host No. 10 U-32 (7-8) in Friday’s 3 p.m. quarterfinal.
U-32 hasn’t beat Harwood in over a decade, and the last time the Raiders defeated the Highlanders in the playoffs was during the 2008 final when Yalicki was a senior for HU. Last Friday Scharf and Mego-Vasquez scored in a 2-0 victory over the Raiders, who were outshot 7-2.
“We’ve had a lot of one- and two-goal games over them since I’ve been coaching and they just gave us a really tough game last week,” Yalicki said of the Raiders. “They had a good defensive game plan and they stuck to it and they made the game hard for us. So I would expect that they’re going to do something similar. And if they change their plan up it will still be hard. They don’t have as much depth as us, but their kids are all close and they well together and they play for each other really well.”
