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Boys Soccer

Schiffer’s last goal lifts Weston to SWC South boys soccer championship

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WESTON — Championship games set the stage for improbable moments, moments that show the genius in coaches and turn clutch players into heroes.

With the SWC South championship game tied as time ran down, Weston coach Kevin Fitzsimmons made the decision to sub in sophomore Tyler Schiffer, a move that proved to be the difference maker against Joel Barlow Saturday.

Only 2:46 remained in the game when a free kick from Max Weiss found the head of Schiffer, who directed the ball out of the Barlow keeper’s reach and into the back of the net to secure the 2-1 victory.

“At first I wasn’t going to go in, but coach said, ‘Why not?’” Schiffer said. “I didn’t even have to move, the ball went straight to my head. I hit it backwards and it just went in. It is kind of crazy, it didn’t feel real until now.”

The goal completed a comeback for Weston, which had trailed 1-0 in the second half.

“I wanted to get Tyler a little bit of experience so we threw him in there,” Fitzsimmons said. “I know he is a great athlete, I knew he could do it and he got his head on the ball. It was a great goal, a great winner. I want to say I knew he’d get the winner.”

After a quiet first half Barlow took charge when the teams retook the field, as senior Max Bayer hammered a loose ball into the bottom right corner of the net for a 1-0 lead with more than 30 minutes to play.

Now trailing, Weston began to flip the narrative by dominating possession and relentlessly attacking.

“I think after the first 18 minutes (of the second half), we played the better football, which is hard to say against Barlow because they are a very good team,” Fitzsimmons said. “But we were the best team on the night.”

With 20:49 remaining, Weston senior captain Janak Sekaran buried a deep ball in the back of the Barlow goal just over the goalie’s outstretched arms.

“I was honestly going up for a cross, but it didn’t swerve so it went in,” Sekaran said with a smile. “I just had a lucky shot that didn’t cut back and I was really happy.”

The game remained tied until Schiffer’s decisive blow.

“We knew we had a great squad, not just 11 players,” Fitzsimmons said. “We didn’t start as well as we would have liked to this season, but halfway through something clicked and we have been noticing week after week that we were getting to where we needed to be.”

Expectations were high for the Weston team, which entered the season coming off back-to-back SWC final appearances, having won the championship in 2018 over Barlow and ending as the runner up to Pomperaug last year.

In the season opener Barlow handled Weston 4-1, Weston’s lone loss of the season.

The teams met again in the regular season and Weston won on a 3-0 shutout, but at that point Barlow had lost two key players for the remainder of the year to broken legs.

“This team, when we were at full strength, is probably the best team we’ve ever had,” Barlow coach Paul Winstanley said. “Unfortunately, halfway through the season we lost two of our best players to broken legs.”

Barlow’s leading scorer Ben Goodacre, who had 11 goals in six games, and starting central midfielder Jason Viani proved to be devastating loses.

“We had our chances, we were here and ready to take this,” Winstanley said. “When you’re playing so many young guys like we are doing right now, this can happen. Give Weston all the credit, they fight hard and you have to beat Weston. They are not going to beat themselves. Today we probably beat ourselves.”

Even though the conference was split into North and South divisions, Fitzsimmons believes these two teams would have met in the championship regardless.

“This is a tough conference. It is not easy to get to a final and this is our third in a row,” Fitzsimmons said. “Barlow is the best team in the conference so to play against them, it probably would have looked like this even if there weren’t two sides to the conference. It was different this year, but the competition was still there.”

Having bested Barlow in an SWC final for the second time in three years, Weston seniors ended their careers in winning fashion.

“Weston has a special group of guys,” Sekaran said. “Everybody here puts their blood, sweat, and tears into practice and I am so fortunate to have had my team and coaches around me. I think this is the best program in Connecticut.”