Golden Eagles, Pacers battle to 0-0 deadlock in boys soccer

By ERIC CLINE

For The Sun­bury News

The most per­plex­ing thing about a score­less tie in any sport is the gen­eral public’s belief that noth­ing hap­pened in the game, but there was plenty going on at Gau­thier Field Tues­day. There just weren’t any goals scored.

The defenses were the heroes in the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion match between vis­it­ing Big Wal­nut and host Hayes, but despite sev­eral good attempts at the net, the match still ended in a 0–0 tie.

“We dinged the post enough,” Big Wal­nut coach Brett Weiss said. “We gave it a good shot at scor­ing, but nei­ther of us could get through. It was just a typ­i­cal Delaware-Big Wal­nut bat­tle. We got exactly what I thought we’d get.”

“We both cre­ated oppor­tu­ni­ties, though I’d say they had more of the swing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the first half,” Hayes coach Nate Weak­land said. “Free kicks were dan­ger­ous for both sides, and obvi­ously that’s where most oppor­tu­ni­ties were com­ing from.”

Defen­sively, both Hayes (2–1-1, 1–0-1 OCC Cap­i­tal) and Big Wal­nut (3–1-1, 0–1-1 OCC Cap­i­tal) had noth­ing to com­plain about. Both teams stepped up and stopped chances when they needed.

Hayes, with vet­er­ans like senior Jor­dan Carl­son and junior Bryan Neitzelt, were strong all the way through, and senior goal­keeper Tommy Gibbs faced six shots on goal on the night and saved them all.

“We’re play­ing very well as a unit defen­sively,” Weak­land said. “We have a cou­ple young guys back there who stepped it up and Tommy did really well com­ing off his line. He’s start­ing to become more aggres­sive, which is what we need him to do.”

But Big Wal­nut was just as strong, fea­tur­ing a solid pres­ence on the back line from juniors Bray­den Drons­field and Dominic Zumpone, accom­pa­nied by a ster­ling evening from junior goal­keeper Tyler Sholl, who saved all five shots Hayes put on net.

“My guys adjusted,” Weiss said. “They haven’t been play­ing too long back there, but in the sec­ond half they adjusted and we started win­ning that ini­tial push, and that made it eas­ier for us.”

Big Walnut’s best chances came in a flurry late in the first half, when sopho­more defense­man Noah Gibson’s cor­ner kick found Foor, who blasted a shot in and out of Gibbs’ arms. Another Golden Eagle sent the rebound up off the cross­bar, and the rebound came out to senior for­ward Ethan Green, who sent another shot on that was swal­lowed up by Gibbs.

Hayes’ first scor­ing chance came just four min­utes later, when Carl­son sent a free kick from just out­side the 18-yard box on net, only to have Sholl make a leap­ing save.

About nine min­utes later, senior mid­fielder Phoenix Neitzelt found the ball in the mid­dle of the 18 and ripped a shot toward goal, only to have Big Walnut’s Gib­son turn it away.

Hayes fin­ished with 14 shots to Big Walnut’s 13, but both teams had six shots on goal, with Gib­son adding his non-keeper save in the sec­ond half. Big Wal­nut held a 3–2 edge in cor­ner kicks.

BIG WALNUT 4, TEAYS VALLEY 1 — The Golden Eagles pulled away from a 1–1 half­time dead­lock with three second-half goals en route to hand­ing the host Vikings’ their first loss of the sea­son in Saturday’s non-conference matchup at Ashville.

Big Wal­nut (4–1-1) put the game away in the sec­ond half, scor­ing 2 goals in a 5-minute span. Bobby Bogantz sent a cor­ner kick to Shane Face­myer, who shot from the 6-yard box to give the Golden Eagles a 2–1 lead. Austin Foor took a wicked dip­ping shot from 22 yards, a shot the Teays Val­ley keeper did well to stop, but the ball rebounded back out to a streak­ing Luke Hart­ings who tapped it in for the third goal and a 3–1 advantage.

With time wind­ing down Face­myer took a shot from 20 yards, a shot which glanced off a Viking defender’s head and into the Teays Val­ley goal as he attempted to clear the ball for the 4–1 final.

Teays Val­ley (4–1-0) took an early 1–0 lead as the Vikings’ Tom Kiefer scored from 8 yards out after two Big Wal­nut defend­ers lost con­trol of the ball in front of their own goal. The Golden Eagles came back to tie the game at 1–1 four min­utes later as Face­myer picked up a loose ball fol­low­ing a cor­ner kick and placed a left-footed shot from 15 yards into the lower right cor­ner of the net.

Tyler Sholl was once again had a solid sec­ond half, record­ing his 2 saves towards the end of play in the final. Teays Val­ley totaled 6 shots on goal, 1 come in the first half and 5 in the sec­ond half. Big Wal­nut held a 22–6 advan­tage in shots on goal while Teays Val­ley claimed an 8–6 edge on cor­ner kicks. Bogantz, Face­myer and Foor recorded assists for the Golden Eagles.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.