jambushoytan: Nexgen Football Club tops Martin Luther King in 18U boys soccer

Sunday, July 28, 2013 10:46 PM EDT

By CARL JOSEPHSON
STAFF WRITER

NEW BRITAIN ? It was a long week for all athletes involved in the Nutmeg State Games, but when all was said and done only one team could be a gold medal winner in the 18U boys soccer division.?

While Martin Luther King, a team made of kids from around Hartford, made things interesting on Sunday evening at Veterans Stadium, the Nexgen Football Club came out on top with a 4-3 victory.

The team based out of Tolland, which has been together for just one week, gelled well and played their way all the way to a gold medal.

?It was fantastic,? NFC coach Steve Impey said. ?The boys worked really hard to come out on top with a gold medal and can?t really ask for much more. That was our goal going into it.?

Nexgen has the same story that so many other teams have before entering the Nutmeg Games. With many different athletes from various teams, they worked hard and really came together when it mattered most.?

?I was really happy,? Tyler Impey said. ?We just made this team out of the blue, so it was really good how we played and we really connected. We felt good as a team, came out here and obviously played our hearts out and made it work.?

Trailing 4-1, Martin Luther King made a game out of it with two second half goals from Adoni Tinker. While they didn?t make it all the way back, coach Lorenzo Ricketts could not have been more proud of the way his kids played throughout the week.

?I am so proud of them,? Ricketts said. ?We started here on Monday and one of the things I am proud and glad for is with all the adversities and stuff like that, nobody was seriously hurt. Win, lose or draw, we can come back to a tournament like this because it is well done. I think this is something great that New Britain is doing here, just that we have somewhere to take these kids.?

Nexgen struck for the first two goals of the game, the first one coming from a header by Zac Parracino off a great pass into the box by JD Stearns.

Zach Aukerman put his team up 2-0 with a shot that went off the crossbar before barely dropping into the goal.

After Martin Luther King picked up its first goal of the game just before halftime, Nexgen came out on fire in the second half.?

?We kind of came out hard in the second half, which was the plan,? Steve Impey said. ?We tried to put it away there. We knew the time, we knew what was left and we knew what to do. I thought the team played great. It?s a heck of a team for one week, that?s for sure.?

In the second half, Parracino was taken down hard in the box, but got shaken up on the play. Therefore, Tyson Bridge took the penalty kick and put it in the back of the net to make it 3-1. Bridge would add another one on another great pass from Aukerman, making it 4-1 and rounding out the Nexgen scoring.?

Ricketts was happy to see some fight in his team after falling behind 4-1, and it did not matter to him whether they won or lost. All that mattered was they got the chance to play.

?I?m so proud of these kids, that from where they came from, they could come to these heights and perform at this level,? Ricketts said. ?From what I?m told of (Nexgen), they are very good. A club team and a premier team is very different, but I love to play premier teams because we can learn so much from them.?

Carl Josephson can be reached at?

(860) 225-4601 ext. 272 or?

cjosephson@newbritainherald.com.?

On Twitter: @CNJosephson15.?

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