Boys soccer defeats SM East 1-0
The Jags won by one penalty kick in the first half
September 18, 2017
Boys soccer won 1-0 in a nail-biter home game against SM East on Friday, Sept. 15.
The Jags began strong and pressed hard with the first foul against sophomore Ian Carroll five minutes into the game. This resulted in the first penalty kick of the game in the offensive third.
Head coach Arlan Vomhof felt fairly confident going into the game and hoped the players would incorporate the strategies they learned in practice to bring the team to victory.
“You’re always worried because you never know,” Vomhof said. “Last year we tied them, [and] the year before they beat us. So, I just was hoping they would put together things we’d been working on the last few days.”
For the most part, the Jags held possession of the ball and kept on the offensive half of the field. This was showcased when junior Jake Ashford had the first breakaway run 13 minutes into the game.
Ashford believes there were things he needed to work on personally going into this game, as well as things that the team needed to focus on.
“Personally I’d say [I need to work on] getting back on the defensive end and laying off more instead of dribbling,” Ashford said. “As a team, [we need to work on] just staying wide, moving off the ball [and] keeping possession of it.”
With 20 minutes until half, senior Drake Brizendine was substituted into the game. Almost immediately after, he was fouled in the goal box. Brizendine took the resulting penalty kick and scored the only goal of the game.
According to Vomhof, the penalty kick allowed the team to play better overall.
“It got us to calm down,” Vomhof said. “Everyone was playing really hard there and kind of going crazy. That allowed us to just settle down, get into our game and just relax a little.”
The first half ended 1-0. According to Carroll, the Jags came back out onto the field with a noticeably different playing style.
“I feel like we didn’t press as well the second half as we did the first half, but we kept the ball a lot better and we were just playing smart,” Carroll said.
Ashford believes that was to be expected because of the penalty kick in the first half.
“Second half I’d say we defended a little bit more, but that’s understandable because they were coming at us since we were up 1-0,” Ashford said. “I thought we defended well and we attacked well the first half.”
Vomhof believes the team needs to work on both an offensive skill and a defensive skill for the next game.
“I’d like us to work on finishing with our heads better,” Vomhof said. “We’ve had a lot of crosses that came across that didn’t really do much. We’re [also] allowing the back side to be open and we need to fix that.”
The team will play an away game against Blue Valley West on Thursday, Sept. 21.
