Winchester Boy's Soccer Remains Undefeated

The rain may have slowed Winchester's scoring rampage, but it did nothing to slow down the Sachems winning.

Winchester's lead over Lexington increased to four points as the Sachems (9-0-1) held on to defeat Reading, 3-1 Tuesday afternoon at Manchester Field.

Even though Reading (0-7-1) came in with only one point this season, the Rockets have lost five games this fall by a score of 1-0. With Winchester being the only team to find any sustained offensive success against the Rockets.

Knowing they didn't want to fall into a defensive game, Kevin DeSa's two goals in the first 12 minutes of the game forced Reading to try and play more offensively, something they've struggled with this year.

"We are real excited about this win," said Winchester coach Paul Austin. "We haven't scored early often this season so that was a good sign."

As for Reading, the Rockets found some offense when Conor Shea was able to recover a loose ball and slide it past the Winchester goaltender for Reading's second goal this season.

"This is obviously a very good team," said Reading coach Dan McGrath. "They have a lot of goal scorers and they work hard. You need to put them under pressure and we didn't do that. We gave them to much time."

Nick Stern extended Winchester's lead to 3-0 when he scored off a pass from Marc Greenblatt.

The Rockets were able to keep it close mainly because they have a defense that coming in, has allowed nine goals in eight games, but unfortunately for Reading that defense has yet to give the Rockets a victory.

You might look at the fact that they haven't won a game yet, but we knew they had a good defense," Austin said. "They don't have the offensive punch, but they work hard and don't allow very many goals."

"We're creating some chances," McGrath said. "But we're just not finishing in the box. We're still trying to find our way and play a more consistent 80 minutes."

Winchester now has one more game as they travel to Belmont this Thursday before they host Lexington on Monday for a 10 a.m. kickoff. The game could very well determine the league champion.