MONTICELLO – Somerville Field holds a nostalgic place in the hearts of many Monticello High School graduates. On Tuesday, the field welcomed the host Monticello Panthers boys soccer team and the visiting S.S. Seward Spartans. 

The Panthers closed out the game with a 2-1 win. Communication was at a high for the Panthers early in the game but that didn’t stop the Spartans from pressuring the home team. The Spartans scored the first goal of the game in the first half with the Panthers’ Vicente Maldonado Cortes scoring a goal in the first and second half of the game leading his team to victory. The Panthers managed to control the opening minutes of the second half keeping the Spartans from crossing midfield line. 

As the clock wound down the Spartans turned up the intensity shooting multiple goal attempts to no avail. Luckily the Panthers continued to scramble into the final minutes of the game to seal the win. After their close victory head coach Andres Tamayo said, “It was a rough game; I feel like we could’ve been more dominant, our midfield was lacking. 

There’s a lot of things we have to work on and clean up because this is a quick season. We have three games next week already so there are a lot of things we have to fix. These are good boys, they know how to play and I’m just excited for the future.”