DRYDEN –– The No. 8 Dryden boys soccer team opened the Section IV Class B tournament with a bang Wednesday at Dryden High School, as it blitzed past No. 9 Sidney to a 4-1 win.
The Lions got off to a rocky start, surrendering a goal in the first two minutes of the game. Their recovery was swift from there, as they controlled most of the action the rest of the way.
“The one thing we don’t do is panic,” Dryden head coach Laszlo Engel said. “We just keep playing and we went back to our game plan. We tightened up our defense a little bit, and when our defense plays well the offense starts playing better and it just led to that and snowballed from there. Then we got the first goal, and then the second and we just had a lot of good opportunities.”
Dryden tied the game at the 31:32 mark of the first half when Peter Nydam found Luke Eshelman, who rocketed it past Sidney goalkeeper Noah Hutter. Sidney forced Braden Allen to make several timely stops over the next few minutes, and he stood tall to keep things knotted at one. After Paul Busby rifled one home with 15:43 left in the first half the momentum completely flipped to Dryden’s favor for good.
Busby and Eshelman generated offensive chances at will from then on, as they were involved in every scoring chance the rest of the way. Eshelman just missed earning his second goal of the night on numerous occasions late in the opening 40, with the margin remaining 2-1 at the break.
Busby connected on his second goal two and half minutes into the second half. He finished off the hat trick just over 10 minutes later, as Sidney failed to present any signs of a comeback effort.
Busby and Eshelman have powered Dryden all season offensively and their chemistry with each other was on full display Wednesday.
“They’ve been playing with each other for a long time, so they know the tendencies each one has and they find each other,” Engel said. “They’ve really been connecting and they really find each other well on the field.”
While the offense has been a factor all season, the defensive effort was the difference maker for Dryden in the win.
“It was huge,” Busby said. “I talked to them after (the early goal) and there were a few more after, but very few mistakes in the second half and really in the last hour of the game I’d say.”
“That’s really big,” Engel added. “When they play together and stay compact and move together it builds the confidence of the while team. We got it back together today, hopefully going into Saturday we can keep it going.”
With the win, Dryden heads on the road to take on No. 1 Chenango Forks at 6 p.m. Saturday.
