Gallery by Heather Belcher
Princeton- Beckley boys soccer head coach Steve Laraba was convinced his squad would attack teams with a myriad of weapons this season.
Following a sluggish start over the first three matches against a grueling schedule, the Flying Eagles have now proven those words to be prophetic.
Thursday night it was sophomore Alex Belcher’s turn in the limelight.
Scoring two first half goal, Belcher led Beckley to a 4-0 win over sectional rival Princeton, pushing the Flying Eagles (4-1-2) win streak to four games.
“When you get a sectional win on the road, score four goals, suffer no major injuries and get no cards, it is always a good way to end the night,” Laraba said. “We had quite a bit of the ball. You can’t say you are not happy with a 4-0 win, but I think we deserved a couple of more. We need to be a little more clinical, but our possessions were good. It wasn’t even just to keep the ball. We had the ball with a purpose and we tried to get (Princeton) to over shift so we could find the gaps. I thought we did a good job of that.”
Belcher’s performance comes on the heels of a four goal performance from Ali Farghaly in a win over Oak Hill (7-0), along with two goals from Coby Dillon in the Bridgeport (3-2) win and two netters from Hagan Hall in a victory over Charleston Catholic (4-0). All of the wins coming in the last week.
“Somebody else is always stepping up and it is really a positive for us,” Laraba said. “You can’t try and focus on one guy or even two. The goals can and will come from everywhere.”
During the current win streak, Beckley has also set the tone for those matches with early scores and solid play in the early minutes of the contest.
Thursday night Michael Fayiah scored the first of three set piece goals for the Flying Eagles, finding the back of the net in the seventh minute.
“That was really good. We have been working on them and you can tell,” Laraba said about the set piece chances. “The guys are really starting to buy into it and it’s good to see that.”
Belcher doubled the lead in the 21st minute with another set piece goal before finding himself on the back end of a pass from Hagen Hall in the 31st minute for a 3-0 Beckley advantage.
“This team shares the ball really well. We emphasized that in training. We talked about why we wanted to do it and what the benefits were,” Laraba said. “They have simply bought in. It is not passing and possession just to keep the ball. It is definitely possession with a purpose. This team is starting to gel together very well.”
Hall rounded out the scoring less than seven minutes into the second half.
Princeton head coach Erick Burgess knew his team faced a tough task Thursday night against Beckley. The task became a bit more difficult with freshman sensation Bryson Pritchett out with an injury.
Senior captain Rory Bailey had to also leave the match early in the second half when he sustained an injury.
“We are not a super deep team and we knew that coming into the season. Losing one of our starters, Bryson, and then losing Rory was tough,” Burgess said. “We are looking back at the bench wondering who to go with. We wanted to get out of this game not too beat up.”
On the other side of the ledger, the Flying Eagles just kept reloading all night on the pitch.
“They are a really good team and they can run in solid player after solid player,” Burgess said. “We have a couple of good players that we can run back, but it does wear on you when they are running four or five people and we are running one guy in.”
Even in the tough loss, Burgess found a silver lining on a cloudy performance.
“We fell asleep on some corners and that is a thing we can look back at. After that we only allowed one goal,” Burgess said. “I think we possessed it some times pretty well. When we got tired we played kick ball a little bit. There are some things that we saw in this game that we can build on.”
Laraba also talked about how the first three matches of the season against powerhouses Hurricane, Morgantown and Cabell Midland weighed on the last four results for his team.
“I think they were important because this is a very talented group, but we are still relatively young. It let them know that there is a level that we have to play at,” Laraba explained. “It kind of woke them up a little bit and we have put together a string of really good performances with very good results. The strength of schedule prepares us for late October and what we hope is early November.”
Late October will bring on sectional play where Beckley now sits in the driver’s seat in regards to home field advantage after sectional wins over Oak Hill and Princeton.
Next up for the Flying Eagles is a trip to Fairlea to battle another sectional foe, Greenbrier East, next Thursday.
“We had three games last week and two games this week,” Laraba said. “The first home football game is tomorrow night, so we want to let the guys just enjoy being high school students. We will give them the weekend, then we will come back Monday and get ready for East.”
Princeton (5-1-2) will look to bounce back Saturday when it travels to Capital. The Tigers next sectional clash will be Thursday at Oak Hill.
