It’s the dark side of the statewide playoff format.
But by less than 0.1 of a percentage point, the No. 19-seeded Newburyport boys soccer team had to travel over two hours out to No. 14 Amherst-Pelham for Monday’s Division 2 first round game. Quite the “reward” for the CAL Kinney-champion Clippers, who landed on that seed despite finishing the regular season unbeaten with three ties.
So whenever the Clippers were to have exited the playoffs, it would mark their first loss of the season.
Unfortunately … that happened in the first round.
It was a great fight and season from Newburyport, but it came to an end two hours away from home on Monday night following a 3-2 loss to Amherst-Pelham. The Clippers (15-1-3) had their chances to find an equalizing goal late, but weren’t able to cash in to send the game into extra time.
“Disappointing,” said Newburyport coach Shawn Bleau, who was recently named the CAL Kinney co-Coach of the Year. “We hit a few crossbars during the game, and had balls cleared off the line with scrums right in front of the goal.”
What’s crazy is that Newburyport wasn’t fazed by the long drive.
The Clippers stepped off the bus prepared and ready to go, and actually took a commanding 2-0 lead in the first half. Junior captain Timmy DeGraves buried a chance set up by fellow junior Quentin Miller, which was followed by Josh Benicio scoring a goal off an assist from Max Coffin.
But Amherst-Pelham (7-6-4) was able to tie things up with 25 minutes left in the second half, then found the game winner about five minutes later before holding on for the win. It’s a result that sends the Hurricanes moving on to the Division 2 Round of 16, where they’ll most likely face No. 3 Northampton later this week.
Meanwhile for Newburyport, its 2026 season is now in the rearview mirror.
Since getting realigned up to Division 2 ahead of last year, it’s understandably been more of an uphill climb for the program. Every other Cape Ann League team resides somewhere in the bottom-3 divisions, so as a result, the Clippers had the lowest “Opponent Rating” metric of any D2 team ranked inside of the top-21 this fall. An 11-5-2 regular season record last year still had the Clippers as the No. 31 seed in the playoffs, and now this year’s unbeaten squad was at No. 19. The Clippers were ranked as high as No. 13 during the year and in line to host a first round game, but a draw against a lower-ranked Division 4 opponent in Amesbury sent them plummeting down the ranks.
Point being: The Clippers basically have to be perfect.
But despite the tough end, it’s certainly worth celebrating what this team was still able to accomplish.
It was yet another outright CAL Kinney title for the program, which also won the annual ALS Cup game against rival Pentucket for the fifth straight year. The Clippers had seven seniors this season who all contributed in Noah Mercer, Arthur Pereira, Danny Lopez, Shea Cook, Colin Courtney, Baylor Yim and Ronan Refour, and who will all of course be missed.
However, this wagon shouldn’t be slowing down come 2027.
Newburyport is in line to return the bulk of its roster — and starting lineup — next season, which includes goalie Tyler Lisauskas and defenders Josh Sucheki, Coffin and Luc Wittner out back. The juniors DeGraves and Miller are likely to be named Daily News All-Stars for us for the second straight year, and Wesley Young, Oliver Fagan (team assist leader) and freshman Mike Savastra (a team goals leader) all had breakout campaigns as threats on the offensive end.
The Clippers should once again be difficult to take down come next year.