BRATTLEBORO — There's been no place like home for the Brattleboro Colonels this season.
Undefeated at Tenney Field during the regular season, the second-seeded Colonels kept the streak going in the postseason with a 3-1 win over the seven-seeded Colchester Lakers in a Division I quarterfinal match on Friday.
As was the case the day before in the Brattleboro/South Burlington girls soccer playoff match, there was a stiff wind from the west. Colonels coach Paul Sather watched that match, and took note.
Sather elected to go into the wind for the first half, taking his chances that the score would be at least even at the half - which is exactly what happened.
Colchester struck first in the eighth minute, as junior Colin Burns booted a wind-assisted 30-yarder from the left side that sailed into the upper right corner of the net.
Brattleboro patiently counterattacked and got the equalizer at the 20 minute mark when senior forward Travis Elliot-Knaggs got behind the Laker defense, ran down a long lead pass and beat Lakers goalkeeper Matt McBride with a shot to the left corner of the net.
With the wind at their backs for the second half, the Colonels dominated play and got two goals in the process.
In the 53rd minute, Elliot-Knaggs got to the ball just before it rolled over the end line and sent a pass out in front of the Lakers goal crease. Senior forward Jose-Diego Silva couldn't get a foot on it, but junior midfielder Cesar Moore could, and blasted it in for the go-ahead goal.
The emotional harpoon for the Lakers came in the 74th minute, when senior midfielder Matt Dunn got a feed from Elliot-Knaggs and blasted a shot past McBride for an insurmountable 3-1 lead.
“We haven't had many games like this all year,” said Sather. “The wind was definitely wearing [Colchester] down in the second half, and when you get down by a goal, it's tough to come back.”
Sather credited the Colonels' defenders - Alex Phomnath, Charles Greene-Cramer and Colby Hescock - and the midfielders with doing a good job marking Colchester's forwards and taking the pressure off goalkeeper Evan Darling.
“It was a testiment to how well we played that we got three goals against a team that didn't give up many all year,” he said.