FAIRHAVEN Fairhaven's boys soccer team erased a halftime deficit at Nantucket on Wednesday, Nov. 11, but the Whalers scored again about a minute later and won 3-1, ending the Blue Devils' run in the state tournament and their season at 13-4-2.
The Division 3 Round of 16 game matched two teams the MIAA seeded side by side, No. 9 Fairhaven, seeded at 12-3-2, and No. 8 Nantucket, seeded at 12-4-2, on the Nantucket Elementary School soccer field. Nantucket moves on to the quarterfinals against the winner of top seed Medfield and No. 16 Foxborough, who were scheduled to play at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Medfield, by the MIAA bracket.
Fairhaven made the trip two days after a 1-0 home win over Dover-Sherborn, a team that reached the Division 3 semifinals last fall before losing 2-1 to eventual champion Norwell, by the MIAA's 2025 bracket.
How the second half turned
Nantucket took a 1-0 lead into halftime, and Fairhaven needed less than four minutes of the second half to wipe it out: the Blue Devils won a corner kick, kept the ball alive in a crowd in front of the Nantucket goal and knocked it in with 36:11 left on the game clock, then piled together in their white jerseys by the sideline to celebrate.
The tie lasted about a minute, as Nantucket went straight back up the field, worked the ball into the Fairhaven box and scored with about 35 minutes to play for a 2-1 Whalers lead.
Fairhaven kept pressing and earned set pieces in the Nantucket end midway through the half, but the goal that would have tied it again never came, and Nantucket put the game away late in the half, when a Whalers attacker dribbled in on the Fairhaven goal, beat the goalkeeper and made it 3-1.
A season of goals
Fairhaven scored 52 goals in 19 games this fall, by the scores on its Arbiter Live schedule, and allowed 21. The Blue Devils beat Bourne 8-4 on Sept. 28, routed Old Colony 6-1 on Oct. 13, won 5-0 at Seekonk and 5-1 over Old Rochester in September, and shut out Somerset Berkley 4-0 on Oct. 21.
Dan Burgess scored three goals in a 5-2 win at Bishop Stang on Oct. 31, and Dylan Pimentel added a goal and an assist, The Standard-Times reported. Matt De Medeiros won the paper's SouthCoast Boys Athlete of the Week vote for the week before with 62% of the vote, after two goals and two assists in two games, and Pimentel had won the same vote earlier in the fall, the paper reported.
Fairhaven's defense carried the Blue Devils down the stretch, as they closed the regular season with a 1-0 win over Westport on Nov. 2 and opened the tournament with the 1-0 win over Dover-Sherborn on Monday, Nov. 9, back-to-back shutouts on their home field, by the team's schedule and the MIAA bracket.
What comes next
Nantucket beat No. 25 Pentucket 5-1 on Monday for its first state tournament win in five years, Nantucket Current reported, with goals from Raakin Brannigan, Calvin Guevara, Jayson Ayala, Aldo Lemus and Stoyan Popov, a junior The Boston Globe's tournament preview named among the Division 3 players to watch. Coach Rich Brannigan II's Whalers learn their quarterfinal opponent Wednesday night at Medfield, and the MIAA bracket lists that game for Saturday, Nov. 14, at 2:30 p.m., with the site still to be posted.
Every South Coast final, in every sport, is on the South Coast 360 scoreboard.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
Notes
The final comes from the Nantucket Sports Connection broadcast, followed live to the final whistle, and the MIAA's bracket, which posted Nantucket 3, Fairhaven 1 by 4:34 p.m.; the order of the goals comes from the broadcast and its replay. The halftime score is the broadcast's score display at the start of the second half; the first half itself is not on the replay, so this story does not describe it. Seeds, records, the Dover-Sherborn and Pentucket results and the quarterfinal pairing come from the MIAA's 2026 Division 3 bracket, read at 3:35, 4:12 and 5:07 p.m. Nov. 11, which also lists the quarterfinal for Saturday, Nov. 14, at 2:30 p.m., and Fairhaven's season results and goal totals from its Arbiter Live schedule. Player honors and goals are credited to The Standard-Times, Nantucket's Monday scorers and the site name to Nantucket Current, and the preview pick to the Boston Globe. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Halves are 40 minutes, so 36:11 left means 3:49 had been played. The broadcast's game clock was reset late in the second half, so the third goal is described as late rather than by the minute. Not heard yet: Fairhaven's coach and players; we are asking athletic director Donald Joseph for their words, and they go in as an update when they answer.
Corrections
No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.
Sources (7)
- Nantucket Sports Connection (Nantucket Community Television): MIAA Div. 3 Round of 16, Nantucket Whalers Boys Soccer vs. Fairhaven Blue Devils, Nov. 11, 2026 (live stream and replay)Watched live from 3:36 p.m. to the final, and the second half on the stream replay. Score bug: Nantucket 1, Fairhaven 0 at the start of the second half; 1-1 after a Fairhaven goal off a corner kick with 36:11 left; Nantucket 2-1 at about 35:11; 3-1 late in the half; final 3-1 with 00:00 on the clock. Photo is a still from this broadcast. Read Nov. 11, 2026, 3:36 to 4:1x p.m.
- MIAA: Boys Soccer 2026 Division 3 State TournamentSeeds 1. Medfield (17-1-0), 8. Nantucket (12-4-2), 9. Fairhaven (12-3-2), 16. Foxborough (8-6-4), 24. Dover-Sherborn, 25. Pentucket; Round 2 Fairhaven 1, Dover-Sherborn 0 (11/09/26, Fairhaven); Nantucket 5, Pentucket 1 (11/09/26, Nantucket); Round 3 Nantucket 3, Fairhaven 1, 11/11/26 2:00 PM, Nantucket (posted by 4:34 p.m.); Medfield vs. Foxborough 11/11/26 5:00 PM, Medfield; Round 4 Nantucket 11/14/26 2:30 PM, site blank (posted by 5:07 p.m.). Read Nov. 11, 2026, 3:35, 4:12, 4:34 and 5:07 p.m.
- MIAA: Boys Soccer 2025 Division 3 State TournamentSemifinal Norwell 2, Dover-Sherborn 1, Nov. 17, 2025; final Norwell 1, Greater New Bedford 0, Nov. 22, 2025. Reread Nov. 11, 2026, 5:1x p.m.
- Arbiter Live: Fairhaven boys varsity soccer scheduleEvery 2026 result: Sept. 7 to Nov. 9, 13-3-2 with 51 goals for and 18 against; Sept. 28 vs Bourne W 8-4; Oct. 13 vs Old Colony W 6-1; Sept. 16 @ Seekonk W 5-0; Sept. 21 vs Old Rochester W 5-1; Oct. 21 vs Somerset Berkley W 4-0; Oct. 31 @ Bishop Stang W 5-2; Nov. 2 vs Westport W 1-0; Nov. 9 vs Dover-Sherborn W 1-0, Fairhaven HS Stadium; Nov. 11 @ Nantucket High School, NES soccer field. Read Nov. 11, 2026, about 3:5x and 5:07 p.m.
- The Standard-Times (on Yahoo Sports): Vote for the SouthCoast Boys Athlete of the Week for Oct. 26 to Nov. 1Published Nov. 2, 2026, 7:36 p.m.: Dan Burgess (Fairhaven) 3 goals against Bishop Stang; Dylan Pimentel (Fairhaven) 1 goal and 1 assist against Stang; previous week's winner Matt De Medeiros (Fairhaven), 62%, 2 goals and 2 assists in two games; earlier winner Dylan Pimentel. Reread Nov. 11, 2026, 5:1x p.m.
- The Boston Globe: MIAA boys' soccer tournament, favorites, sleepers, analysisPublished Nov. 5, 2026: Stoyan Popov (Nantucket, Jr.) among Division 3 players to watch. Reread Nov. 11, 2026, 5:1x p.m.
- Nantucket Current: Nantucket Boys Soccer Advances To Round Of 16 Of MIAA TournamentBy David Creed, Nov. 10, 2026: 5-1 over Pentucket, "For the first time in five years, the Whaler boys soccer team won a state tournament matchup"; goals Raakin Brannigan, Calvin Guevara (penalty kick), Jayson Ayala, Aldo Lemus, Stoyan Popov; coach Rich Brannigan II; Fairhaven game Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m. at the Nantucket Elementary School soccer field. Read Nov. 11, 2026, about 4:2x p.m.