Caristi lifts Rams past Witches 2-1

BREWER – For the last three years, the Brewer Witches have held a hex over the Bangor High School boys soccer team.

The hex was broken Tuesday night as the Rams edged Brewer 2-1 in front of approximately 600 fans at Doyle Field.

“I was really pumped. We haven’t beaten Brewer in three years and I knew this was the team to do it this year,” said Bangor senior forward Anthony Caristi, the Rams’ offensive hero.

Bangor improves to 2-0 while Brewer is now 1-1.

Caristi was a key figure in both Bangor scoring plays, assisting on the first goal and scoring the second.

“I really wanted to play as hard as I could with as much intensity as I could,” Caristi said.

His play on the field certainly bore out his statement.

Just five minutes, 38 seconds into the game, Caristi’s forward somersault throw-in from the visitor’s (right) corner found teammate Brent Rogers at the front of a crowd about five yards outside the Brewer goal. Rogers headed the ball into the net’s left corner before Brewer goalie Tim Miller could lay a limb on it.

Bangor dominated play in the first half, using an aggressive, physical style of play to slow Brewer’s quick forwards and keep the ball on Brewer’s side of the field much of the time.

With 15:30 left in the first half, Caristi outran a Brewer defender on a clearout kick by Robert Kimball and beat Miller by faking right and kicking the ball high to the middle past Miller, who had committed to the open right corner.

“I got a good pass from midfield and it was a footrace after that.,” said Caristi. “He was on my left. I looked right, kicked left… and I guessed right.”

Bangor outshot Brewer 10-2 in the first half and looked like it might make a rout of the game.

But the Witches came storming back in the second half. Brewer kept the ball on Bangor’s side for virtually an entire seven-minute span early in the second half.

“They certainly picked up their intensity in the second half. They came back at us hard, but we didn’t lose our composure. We stayed calm and we held off wave after wave of attacks,” said Bangor coach Keith Bosley.

The Witches outshot the Rams 12-6 in the second half.

“I saw a lot of improvement in our team in that one half. Things got real exciting at the end,” said Brewer coach Mike Jeffrey.

Brewer finally got on the board when freshman Jamie Lambert rebounded his own deflected shot off goalie Dan Acheson back into the net from five yards out. Sophomore Josh Schwartz helped set up the play with a deflected shot off the post.

If Caristi was Bangor’s offensive hero, Acheson was the defensive MVP. The junior goalie stopped three high-percentage shots by Brewer in a one-minute span with five minutes left to play to allow Bangor to hang on.

“Basically it was all a blur,” joked Acheson, who saved nine of 14 shots. “It feels great to finally get a win against these guys.”

Miller finished with eight saves on 16 shots for the Witches.