Yarmouth’s Truman Peters had the game of his life Saturday morning.
In the Class B boys soccer state championship game, Peters scored the first and third goals for the Clippers and assisted on the go-ahead goal to lead No. 3 Yarmouth (14-2-2) to a 3-2 victory over No. 1 John Bapst (17-1-1) at Hampden Academy.
“It felt great,” Peters said. “We’ve gone through a lot of adversity this year, lots of close games, comebacks, so it was great to finish off the season like this.”
Yarmouth came out of the gates aggressively and immediately started to push forward.
Peters sunk his shot into the left side of the goal just 3:20 into the game to take the lead for Yarmouth.
“It was big,” Peters said of the goal. “Wyatt [Anderson] played a wonderful cross in and luckily found my right foot. I’m a lefty so that could have gone anywhere but it was good to go up 1-0.”
The quick goal changed the complexity of the game and both coaches knew the first few minutes of the game would be a game changer.
“We knew they were good coming in,” John Bapst coach Jason Pangburn said. “We made a defensive mistake and let them cross that ball and that set us on our heels a little bit. It took us until the last 12 minutes to really settle in and play our style.”
“It was huge,” Yarmouth coach Mike Haggerty said. “We knew how talented they are, they have some kids that go forward very well and they haven’t played behind much this year, so we thought the first 10 minutes of the game could decide the game.”
John Bapst appeared to settle into the game in the latter portion of the first half.
The Crusaders had two corners in the final 20 minutes of the half and a couple of free kicks that were stopped by the Clippers.
Yarmouth didn’t have many offensive opportunities but held onto its lead into halftime.
Seven minutes into the second half, the Crusaders earned a corner kick that was whipped into the penalty box by Jack Mason. The pass found Jon Pangburn on the right side who ripped his shot into the right side of the goal to tie the game at 1-1 with 32:41 left to play.
“That was a huge lift,” coach Pangburn said. “Jack has been hitting some really nice corners and Jon found a seam to put that in.”
The two teams battled in possession throughout the second half until Yarmouth earned a free kick when Mason was called for a yellow card about 30 yards away from goal.
Peters took the direct kick and soared the ball over the line of John Bapst defenders and perfectly onto the running head of Stephen Walsh who headed the ball into the goal in stride to give the Clippers a 2-1 advantage with 19:48 remaining.
The free kick was designed by Walsh and his teammates at halftime after attempting to run the same designed play in the first half with no luck.
“The kids made that adjustment, not us,” Haggerty said. “Stevie, the one who got the header, was the one who said, ‘Can we do this, this way?’ When you coach smart kids, they make you look pretty good. They’re the ones that made the adjustment to be 10 yards closer and hitting it one second quicker that got the goal.”
Peters has played with Walsh since he was 9 years old, and said that Walsh is the best header of the ball he’s ever seen.
“Anything in the vicinity and he’ll put it in,” Truman said.
With about 14 minutes remaining, Peters scored off a rebound to make it a 3-1 advantage for Yarmouth.
John Bapst got a goal back by Hunter Clukey with 3:41 left in the game, cutting the deficit to 3-2, but Yarmouth was able to hold the ball away from the Crusaders for most of the remaining time.
It’s Yarmouth’s third Class B title in a row — not counting 2020, during which there was no tournament due to the pandemic — and seventh since 2014.
“It doesn’t get old,” Haggerty said. “It’s a pretty good run.”
Correction: A previous version of this story had the incorrect final score of the game in its first reference. Yarmouth won 3-2.
