Hosting cross-town rival Princeton Day School last week, the Hun School boys’ soccer team got off to a sluggish start.
Failing to maintain consistent possession of the ball, Hun found itself trailing the Panthers 1-0 at halftime.
At intermission, the Hun players trudged to one corner of the field and sat in a circle as Raider head coach Pat Quirk looked to light a fire under the squad.
Playing with more urgency after the break, Hun drew even in the first minute of the second half as Jacob Keller found the back of the net.
“We said at halftime that we wanted to put them under pressure,” said Quirk. “We did that and that led to our goal.”
But the Raiders found themselves under pressure minutes later and surrendered a goal to PDS, which turned out to be the decisive tally as Hun fell 2-1.
“We got excited after the goal but we couldn’t sustain it,” lamented Quirk. “We were just talking to the guys about giving it their all. I think we have some guys taking some plays off and that is hurting us at times.”
Although taking on some tough teams in the early going has hurt Hun’s record in the short term, Quirk thinks the team will benefit from that experience.
“We had three Inter-AC (Inter-Academic League) schools, Haverford (Pa.), Germantown Academy (Pa.), and Chestnut Hill (Pa.), and Pennington,” said Quirk, whose team went 0-4 in that stretch, getting outscored 23-0.
“I think it helps us as we get into the tournaments. It didn’t help that we played them with a couple of injuries and guys missing each game. We haven’t had a complete team in a few weeks now. We are still trying to fill some holes.”
Although Hun didn’t play a complete game against PDS, Quirk saw progress.
“We did some good things,” said Quirk of his squad which fell 2-1 to the George School (Pa.) last Thursday in dropping to 2-6 and is slated to host Life Center on October 9 and Blair Academy on October 11.
“We had some moments where we possessed the ball well, which is what we practice everyday and now we are trying to get it to translate from practice to a game. We haven’t quite got there yet. We are going to have to outwork teams.”