The Rising Sun boys soccer team conceded its Wednesday, September 27 game against Perryville was significantly more closely contested than they had anticipated. "A lot closer," the Tigers' Jason Kelsch acknowledged. "After Perryville barely beat Joppatowne (in overtime two days earlier), we were expecting to roll over them. They came out and played hard. We came out a little complacent and slow." The Tigers started sluggishly and then needed to withstand a late Panther rally to escape with a 3-2 triumph. Perryville's Jon Hamancioglu's second goal of the game came with a minute remaining in regulation and brought the Panthers within a goal but they did not have a chance at an equalizer in the final 60 seconds. "A lot of different things [went wrong]," Rising Sun coach Ken Ulrich said. "Obviously when we play county schools, they kind of want to come for us. And we're ok with that. I think other schools are going to look at us and say, 'We have a shot to try to knock the Big Dog off'. And again, not that we're the Big Dog because obviously we went after Elkton this year." Despite struggling at times, Rising Sun led 2-0 at halftime on goals by Demetri Smith and Ivan Herrera. Andrew Parker set up Smith's breakaway goal with a nighty pass. Herrera got a fortuitous bounce when a rebound of a Garrett Wilson shot caromed off Herrera and into the net.
"At halftime we were thinking, 'Let's just play our game," said Kelsch. "We weren't really worried about losing. We were just worried about just trying to keep possession of the ball and work the ball around. That's what we were working on. But then after they scored the penalty kick and they started getting those scoring chances, we realized we had to pick it up a little bit." Perryville was awarded three penalty kicks in the second half but only converted the first one. The Panthers misfired on two straight spot kicks after the Tigers' Jackson Sopa scored on a fine finish from outside the box to make it 3-1 with 10 minutes to go. The Panthers didn't quit. "Hats off to Perryville," said Ulrich. "They played hard. They gave us everything they got. We just couldn't string any success together. It's like every time we get some success, something would happen and we'd fall back. And I think it was hard for our guys because they expected a different outcome. And it didn't come easy. It was tough for us. I guess it's better that it happens now than later in the season and in the playoffs." Kelsch said the Tigers learned a valuable lesson. "We've got to just mentally prepare for games better, be able to come in prepared to win and play hard every second of the game because we can't give teams like that games like that against us " said Kelsch. Comments are closed.
|
Categories
All
Archives
December 2018
|