photograph by: Kim North
Wheeling Central’s Dawson Zwack (18) battles with Linsly’s Liam Jones for possession of the ball throughout Wednesday evening’s soccer match on the synthetic floor on the sixteenth Street Field in East Wheeling. The Maroon Knights prevailed, 1-0, on Senior Night.
EAST WHEELING – There’s a whole lot of emotion on Senior Night. There’s much more when Linsly and Wheeling Central get collectively, particularly in boys’ soccer.
That was such the case Wednesday evening on the synthetic floor on the sixteenth Street Field because the Maroon Knights (13-2) blanked the visiting Cadets (8-7) by a 1-0 depend.
“There’s always a lot of emotion when we play them. Tonight we were honoring the eight seniors who have gotten us to this point, so there was a big build up of emotion for those two reasons,” Wheeling Central head coach Brian Komorowski stated. “It was a fun game.”
Sophomore JD Schoolcraft scored the lone objective of the match within the thirty second minute off a good looking feed from Grady Mullin. Mullin nudged the ball via a pair of Linsly defenders on the high of the field and Schoolcraft prevented a charging goalkeeper Max Iglesias earlier than placing the ball at the back of the web.
Wheeling Central’s Tino Sperlazza made the objective get up because the junior keeper recorded six saves, with 4 coming within the first half when he was examined a number of instances. It was the eleventh shutout for Sperlazza.
“Tino played a good game,” Komorowski stated. “The again of our protection struggled early, however on the finish they actually pulled via. I believe our middle mids – Conor Wood and Maddox Ochap – performed actually sturdy video games.
“We’ve only given up six goals all season and four of them came in our two losses. Tino has played well for us all season.” Those losses got here to Huntington St. Joe and Charleston Catholic, two perennial state powers.
Linsly head coach Greg Martin remarked, “One of these days we’ll figure out how to put one (goal) in the net on them. It’s been a little bit since we’ve scored on them. We tend to create chances but we’re not efficient enough in front of the goal.”
The Cadets did have a few golden scoring alternatives within the first half, however Sperlazza was as much as the duty every time.
Jamie Loudermilk’s blast from point-blank vary to Sperlazza’s proper knocked the goalkeeper backwards, however not earlier than he punched the ball away together with his fists within the twenty fifth minute. Two minutes later, Felix Gelinas spun round a defender earlier than sending a laser towards the web that Sperlazza dove to his left whereas batting the ball away.
“We put some pressure on them and we had the territory on the back end, but we didn’t create real clear, clear chances,” Martin added. “Soccer is a low incident sport. What happens in each box is the most important thing. Tonight they were able to make the most of their chances and we weren’t able to.”
Sperlazza barely acquired a finger on Augustin Fonseca’s shot from the highest of the field within the sixtieth minute, nevertheless it was sufficient to re-direct the ball off the crossbar.
Iglesias was known as upon to make simply two saves – one in every half.
“We seem to be clicking right now. I just told the team that you want hard games like this because we’ve got some hard games coming down the road,” Komorowski added. “It wasn’t by any means perfect. There are definitely kinks in the armor that we need to fix and then go from there.”
Wheeling Central hosts North Marion on Saturday at 10 a.m. Linsly makes a visit to the japanese panhandle this weekend, taking part in Jefferson at 7 p.m. Friday and Washington at midday on Saturday.