Gallery by Heather Belcher
Scoring first in the regular season can lead to a solid advantage. Scoring first in the postseason is a critical key to victory.
Thursday night at Paul Cline Stadium, the George Washington boys and girls soccer teams both scored first and maintained that advantage throughout to capture the Class AAA Region 3 titles.
The girls squad knocked off Greenbrier East 3-0, while the boys left town with a 3-1 win over Beckley.
“We have talked all week that getting the goal first was so important. Teams can adjust what they are doing offensively. They can start packing it in and try to make you score over 10 people,” George Washington boys head coach Erik Engle said. “That is hard to do when there are that many bodies in the box. We play lots of teams that park the bus. If you get down a goal early, you can have a serious problem in playing catch-up. It is not what you want to do.”
The Patriots started fast putting the Beckley defense to the test. For the first 35 minutes, Beckley keeper Bryson Doss fielded six incredible chances and rejected each one to keep Beckley in the match.
“I think Bryson had a fantastic night in goal,” Laraba said. “He was in the right place at the right time. He only really gave up one rebound and recovered well to save the point-blank shot there. He did very, very well.”
With just over four minutes remaining in the half, the Patriots finally broke through with a goal from Wes Goodwin, assisted by Michael Luechauer.
“I wasn’t really concerned. We talked about that last night too,” Engle said about the early shots not finding the back of the net. “In a match that is this important and has this much on the line, it is not uncommon to look up at that scoreboard and see 15 minutes of 0-0. All you have to do is keep fighting and be patient. It will come and once you get the first one, then the second and third one are a little easier.”
Prior to GW breaking through, the Flying Eagles had two good looks that just would not fall.
A header from Shamad Wynne-Thompson was stopped by Patriot keeper Sam Nelson and a blast from Michael Fayiah missed just wide of the far post.
“If we score earlier, it is definitely a different game. We begin to believe in ourselves a little bit more,” Laraba said. “We preached all week to the guys to believe in their ability to play with a team of that caliber. I think if we would have gotten that earlier goal, we would have built and been a little stronger.”
Trailing 1-0 at the break, Laraba still liked his team’s chances to pull out the win.
“Obviously we would have been happier to get to the half at 0-0, but we knew from the get-go that one goal was not going to decide this game either way. We weren’t upset or down in the locker room,” Laraba said. “We were disappointed that we gave up the goal, but we had in our heads as a team that we could get back into it. We eventually did, but they are a tough team to break down.”
The visitors doubled the lead in the 63rd minute on a direct kick that bounced around in front of the Beckley goal. Ben Tretheway was in the right place at the right time to kick the ball in the back of the net for the Patriots.
“It was kind of like a little scrum and they did have a person in the right place at the right time,” Laraba said. “A lot of times in games this highly contested, it is not this great choreographed move that creates a goal. It is something like a little toe-poke that you can’t really plan for.”
Although Beckley was down, it was not out. Four minutes later Aiden Bell electrified the crowd with a blast on a direct kick just outside the box, to chop the lead in half.
Unfortunately for the Flying Eagles, it was the last gasp. George Washington put the game away on a goal from Chris Knapper off a penalty kick in the waning seconds of the match.
“Anytime we come here and play (Beckley), we know they are going to give us everything that they have. That team is coached so well,” Engle said. “The boys are so disciplined and have so much heart. I love those matches. I love knowing we are going to have such great competition. They are such great hosts anytime that we come here.”
A big factor in the decision Thursday was Beckley’s youth versus GW’s experienced roster.
“When you are playing against a team of 10 seniors and one junior in the goal, that is a lot of experience, a lot of growth and development. They are are a very, very good team,” Laraba said. “I think they just capitalized on the few mistakes that we made better than we capitalized on the mistakes that they made. They didn’t make a lot, but we needed to make those when we had the chance.”
For nearly 40 minutes, the Greenbrier East girls also neutralized the George Washington attack.
That all changed with just under five minutes to play in the opening half.
On a ball played wide, Shelby Tharp beat the defender to the ball giving her a one-on-one look with the East keeper.
Moving to the middle of the box, Tharp made good on the shot for a 1-0 lead for the Patriots in the 35th minute.
“This season has been about having a lot of opportunities and not being able to finish. I was very familiar with (Greenbrier East) and our forwards are faster and quicker,” George Washington girls coach Ali Sadeghian said. “We can beat them one-on-one. I told (Shelby) anytime she had a one-on-one to go at her. That is what she did and finished very nicely.”
In the first meeting between the schools, all-state striker Deryn Doamekpor was not available. Her presence on the pitch Thursday created some problems for Greenbrier East.
“We changed the line-up just slightly with her in the line-up and it was new to them.” Sadeghian said.
“We kind of over played Deryn at that point,” Greenbrier East head coach Mike Dotson said. “That was my fault. We didn’t shift over quick enough because we didn’t want to leave Deryn alone. Those two were tough up front. We knew it and the girls knew it.”’
Trailing by only one goal, Dotson was satisfied with where his team stood at the break.
“The first half I thought we played like we wanted to,” Dotson said. “We were physical and controlled (the ball) enough. We got more out of Caroline (Dotson) and Bailey (Nicely) was hurt tonight too. They both toughed it out and they are a gritty group.”
Prior to the GW winner, the Spartans had a nice chance when Tianna Brigman went down after appearing to have a step on the defender in the box.
“If we could have scored first, it might have been a different game,” Dotson said. “I thought she had the angle and was taken down from behind. Then she rolled that ankle pretty hard. Tianna is really fast and we thought she turned the corner and had her.”
Much to the chagrin of the Spartan faithful, no call was made on the collision.
In a span of three minutes in the second half, the 1-0 lead tripled putting the Patriots on a direct route to the state tournament.
“I changed the formation and the girls hesitated to play it, but they did great,” Sadeghian said. “I was really happy that they adapted really quick and it worked for us.”
With just over 28 minutes to play, a high ball kicked into the box took an odd bounce and went over the Spartan keeper moving up for the save.
Ellie Pray slipped behind the East keeper and with an uncontested look at the net, gave George Washington a 2-0 lead.
“It was a goalie thing where she thought she could have got it. I told her sometimes soccer is just not fair. (The ball) just makes a bad bounce. From our angle you could see it spinning, but from hers you couldn’t.”
The lead went to 3-0 less than three minutes later when a direct kick found Doamekpor loose on the back post for another uncontested goal.
“This is the youngest team that I have coached and I am so proud of them,” Sadeghian said. “I told them at the beginning of the season, be patient and don’t worry about the losses. They learned a lot and did great as the season went along. I am really happy for them.”
George Washington advances to the state tournament which starts Thursday back at Paul Cline Stadium.
