George scores 3, Rams top Witches

BREWER – The Bangor High boys soccer team features 13 seniors with high expectations for themselves.

Those expectations weren’t realized during the first half of Tuesday night’s Class A soccer match against Brewer at Doyle Field, the result in part of some inspired play by the host Witches.

But the Rams regrouped at intermission, and scored four unanswered goals in the second half to earn a 5-1 victory.

Senior forward Dylan George led 2-0 Bangor with three goals, two after the break.

“We just needed to pick up our intensity,” he said. “We were just walking around the field, we weren’t playing the ball quick. We needed to play one-touch ball and get our heads up. We’ve got to know what we’re going to do before we get the ball.”

JoJo Hwalek, a junior forward, scored the go-ahead goal less than six minutes into the second half, breaking a 1-1 tie on a pass from sophomore Christian Larochelle.

George made it 3-1 12 minutes later on a 25-yard direct kick. Brewer set up a wall of four defenders in the penalty area, but there was enough space to the right of the wall for George to blast a shot just inside the goalpost.

George scored his final goal on a penalty kick with 18 minutes left after the hustle of teammate Ross Allen produced a tripping call against the Witches.

“He’s going to have his games where he gets two or three goals,” said Bangor coach Adam Leach of George. “He’s also going to have his games where people are going to concentrate on him, and we have other weapons out there.”

Junior Anthony Martinez capped off Bangor’s scoring with 6:52 left.

Bangor finished with an 11-6 shots advantage, with goalies Austin Smith and Aaron Taft combining for five saves. Mike Kotredes and Chris Brady made six stops for 0-2 Brewer.

George scored his first goal after Hwalek stole a Brewer clearing attempt with 28:55 left in the first half.

But Brewer battled the Rams evenly for the remainder of the period, junior Marc Relford tied the match with a shot from the left wing with 6:22 left until intermission.

“Both games we’ve played so far we’ve had slow starts, and that’s definitely something we have to work on,” said Leach, whose team scored the final three goals of its season-opening win against Lawrence of Fairfield on Saturday to break a 2-2 tie.

“Brewer had some good chances, and at 0-0 they could have knocked one in, and we can’t play from behind, not if we want a championship.”