by Bay Village, Ohio – It was a thrilling match tonight on a beautiful night as Bay hosted St. Ed’s in boy’s varsity soccer action. The Eagles managed to pull out the 1-0 victory, but it didn’t come without physical play and plenty of heated exchanges along the way. The shutout was driven by a shutout from Will Day between the pipes, and the leg of Mark Davis.
This varsity victory for the Eagles was part of a clean sweep for them as St. Ed’s won the JV match 2-0 with goals by Landon Hannigan and Ben Crane.
Just seconds into the match, the Eagles worked their way to the net with a golden chance to score before a swift deflection from Schelzig of the Rockets took the chance away. A few moments later, the Rockets had a nice corner kick that was saved by Eagle keeper Will Day who came out to snag it. The next corner kick went the way of the Eagles and landed off the foot of Lev Kobiakov who had a nice boot at it, but it sailed high of the net and directly through the uprights. The game remained tied 0-0 headed into the 11th minute.
Ben Frey had a great look at it from a corner kick chance in the 12th, but the kick nailed he bar and kept things clean. A few moments later, it was Rocket keeper Jennrich with a pop up save. The Rockets had another great look at it in the 23rd minute with a dead on shot on goal, but Will Day stepped up again with the save.
The Bay bench got a little talkative in the 30th minute as an assistant coach got called for a yellow card. Adding a little fuel to the Rocket fire was a collision with the goalkeeper moments later. No card was pulled on that one, but a foul was assessed.
The Eagles then had two incredible chances to score in the 24th minute, with the second one coming on a dead center blast from Lev Kobiakov that led to a one handed save by Jennrich as he got just enough of it, to launch it over the net and headed to the fence. The Rockets eventually cleared it off the corner kick with a little under 5 minutes to play in the opening half. The match went to half scoreless
The second half saw a few fireworks as the Eagles finally pierced the net in the 54th minute. The combination came when Pofok found Mark Davis on the throw in. From there, Davis found the slot in the lower left corner, and just like that, it was 1-0 Eagles. The second half also saw some chippiness with yellow cards from Sean Davis of the Eagles and Ben Frey of Bay both picking up yellows.
A short while later, the Eagles almost made it 2-0 when a Davis to Ridenour combination led to Roethler getting open for a perfectly timed open shot. Bay goalkeeper Jennrich reacted just in time however and got enough on it, to make the fantastic save.
St. Ed’s hung on to win 1-0. They will next play on September 19th at home versus Wooster. The Rockets will host crosstown rival Rocky River this Wednesday.
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