BY RYAN O'CONNOR

Last season, the Goffstown boys soccer team finished below .500 but made the playoffs.

This year, head coach Randy Lovering wants to host a postseason match. To do so, he said his team must finish with a winning record.

In its first game of the season, at home against Merrimack on Tuesday, Aug. 28, Goffstown lost, 2-0, prompting Lovering to say his team needs more time to gel if it hopes to accomplish that postseason goal.

“We had a young group last year, and our goal was to win enough games to get to the playoffs. We did,” said Lovering of the team’s 5-12 record in 2006. “This year, we have the talent to go further, but teamwork is kind of an issue right now. We’ll do it. We’ll come together.”

Still, Lovering said goalkeeper Nick Campasano played well, saving 14 shots, including a few spectacular feats of athleticism, but gave up two fluke goals – the first three minutes into the game, after a Goffstown defender slipped and knocked the ball right into a foe’s chest and subsequently off his foot and into the net, and the other after Campasano went out to retrieve the ball, collided with a teammate, who kicked the ball in for Merrimack’s second goal.

“I just look at it like it’s good for us to get out there and play some other people and get physical against Merrimack, which is supposed to be a good team,” said Lovering.

Campasano and fellow seniors Brad Downing, a center midfielder, and Aaron Van de Car, who plays in the backfield, lead the team as captains. They are three of the team’s five seniors. The rest of the roster includes 13 juniors and one sophomore.

“I pulled a lot of this year’s juniors up as sophomores last season and played them, so they’ve been together," said Lovering. "And we have a couple new additions which will help us a lot.”

Junior Ed Barrera, who transferred from Arizona by way of Nashua, starts for the Grizzlies, and junior forward Per Hanson joins the team as an exchange student from Denmark.