James Wood Boys’ Soccer Drops Opener To Spotswood, 4-1

Posted: March 21, 2014
By JERRY HOLSWORTH
Special to The Winchester Star

James Wood’s Luke Farinholt battles for possession of the ball in the Colonels’ 4-1 loss to Spotswood in Thursday night’s season opener for both teams. (Photo by Ginger Perry/The Winchester Star)
WINCHESTER — Spotswood left wing Christian Resendiz had a hat trick plus one to spoil James Wood’s boys’ soccer team’s season opener, leading the Trailblazers to a 4-1 win over the Colonels.

“Spotswood played well tonight,” Wood coach Matt Dunsmore said. “They have a couple of very talented players. That’s for sure. But they really didn’t do anything special. They beat us with a couple of good plays in the first half.”

In fairness, the youthful Colonels entered the season without four graduating seniors who presented 27 goals and 30 assists on last year’s team.

“I was very happy that after getting down early we didn’t quit,” Dunsmore said. “We need to be able to score more goals. We need more practice too. We have some transfers who are new to the team and they’re helping a lot. But right now we’re at the stage where we need to earn it, and a lot of our starting positions are still open.”

Wood did keep the game interesting through the first 10 minutes of play. Despite being out-shot 4-1 by Spotswood, the Colonel defense and goalkeeper Cole Morris were able to keep the Trailblazers off the scoreboard.

Things changed dramatically after that though. Spotswood center midfielder Russell DiPaola began to dominate play, and Wood rarely was able to get the ball past midfield against the speedy Trailblazer senior.

“I can’t tell you what we did different after the first 10 minutes,” Trailblazer coach Dan Atwell said. “I have to keep it a secret because we’ll be playing them again soon. But our goal in each game is to keep things simple and play good soccer. I really think that was our secret tonight.”

With 30 minutes left in the first half, DiPaola and Resendiz were able to penetrate the Colonel defense for the first score of the game. DiPaola launched a perfect free kick from just outside the Wood penalty area, and Resendiz headed past Morris to put Spotswood up 1-0.

“Those two guys bring a lot of speed and skill onto the field,” Atwell said. “They’re also great leaders. That combination is something we hope to see more of this season.”

The goal seemed to energize the Trailblazers and deflate the Colonels. Just three minutes later, Resendiz blew past the Wood defense to score his second goal of the game on a breakaway.

“Those two guys were really hard to handle,” Colonel goalkeeper Cole Morris said. “They kept going diagonally through our defense, and that was particularly tough to handle.”

With DiPaola keeping Wood from mounting any offense while sending crisp passes to his forwards, the Colonels were only able to generate two shots in the first half, neither of which challenged Spotswood’s goalkeeper Tate Morris.

With 8:25 to play in the first half, Resendiz broke past Wood’s defense again and put the ball in the back of the Colonel net. This time, however, he was guilty of off-sides.

Undeterred, just four minutes later, Resendiz took a pass from DiPaola, beat Wood’s Morris one-on-one, and tapped the ball into the net to complete his hat trick and give the Trailblazers a 3-0 lead at halftime.

But the results of the first half didn’t cause Wood to lower its head and concede defeat as Colonel defender Daniel Sabia found the net in the first three minutes of the second half.

The Colonel freshman volleyed home a shot at the 37:10 mark in a melee around the Spotswood goal to cut the Trailblazers’ lead to 3-1.

Unfortunately for the Colonels, Sabia’s score was the only goal of the game for Wood. Spotswood tightened its defense and held the Colonels to just one more shot in the second half.

The good news for Wood was that its defense was also able to stiffen, holding Spotswood to just seven shots in the second half, after the Trailblazers had peppered the Colonel goal with 14 shots in the first half.

“We made a couple of adjustments at halftime, and we were determined to prevent them from coming at us like that,” Cole Morris said. “I thought that our changes made a big difference. After losing the first half, we tied them in the second half.”

Resendiz and DiPaola did combine for another goal with 9:42 left in the game, but neither was able to dominate Wood’s defense in the second half the way they did in the first 40 minutes.