It was a matter of quality over quantity in Tuesday night’s boys soccer game between Gorham and Thornton Academy.
Gorham held a decisive edge in every offensive category, except the one that matters most: goals.
Thornton was able to break a scoreless halftime tie with two goals in a 32-second span early in the second half, then added another less than three minutes later to take control of the game. The Golden Trojans held on for a 3-1 victory to improve to 6-2. The loss dropped the Rams to 4-4.
Gorham outshot Thornton 30-11 and had a 6-0 edge on penalty kicks, but didn’t find the back of the net until the game was all but put away.
“We didn’t have a lot of quality shots,” said Rams coach Tim King. “We had a lot of corner kicks. We had a lot of long throw-ins into the box. We just didn’t have that hunger, that finishing touch that you need.”
Gorham controlled possession throughout the first half, when it had a 15-3 shot advantage.
“We were hanging on in the first half,” said Thornton coach Andrew Carlson. “We talked to the guys at halftime and said we can play better than this, we need to play better than this if we want to be successful. I think we didn’t play so well in the first half maybe because Gorham was really doing what they wanted to do.”
After Thornton had a good opportunity in the second minute of the second half on a direct kick from just outside the box that sailed over the goal, the Rams looked like they would continue to control the game after the break.
That changed that in a hurry.
Josh Lombard received a long ball from Christian Letourneau and lofted a shot over the Gorham keeper from some 20 yards out to give the Golden Trojans the lead with 31:45 left in the game. Lombard then played a long pass up to Alec Luro, who dribbled in and put it in the net, making it 2-0 with 31:13 remaining.
“On both of their first two goals, they played a long ball out of the back and they got possession of it up front while we were kind of scrambling back on defense,” King said.
“We got fortunate there at the beginning of the second half,” said Carlson. “I think those were all great finishes by guys that at times have struggled. Gorham didn’t give us much tonight at all.”
With 28:21 left, Luro struck again, one-timing a low cross sent by Chris Stasio from the left wing to make it 3-0.
Gorham got one back with 15:34 remaining when Sean Grandmaison separated himself from the crowd in front of the goal to head Brandon Patten’s corner kick from the right side past Thornton goalkeeper Chris Doran. The Rams had several chances to close the deficit to one after that, but either fired too high or found Doran – who finished with 14 saves – in the way.
“We kind of fell asleep in the last 15-20 minutes,” Carlson said. “Against some programs, you go up 3-nil and you can fall back, but Gorham is going to keep coming forward.”
King credited Thornton with doing what it had to do to win.
“That’s a team that is finding a way to win and they’ve done that all season,” King said. “They’ve haven’t had a lot of chances, they didn’t have a lot of chances tonight, but they take advantage of the ones they have. We couldn’t do that.”
After staring out 4-1, Gorham had now lost three of four.
“We’re in a little bit of a rut,” King said. “We’ve got to go over to Bonny Eagle on Thursday night (after the American Journal’s deadline) to try to get a little positive energy and turn this thing around. I think we’re a good enough club, but the results are the results. 4-4 is 4-4, and that’s where we’re at.”
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