James Wood, Clarke County boys again play to soccer tie

By JERRY HOLSWORTH | Special to The Winchester Star

Mar 20, 2018

WINCHESTER — After a 4-4 tie in their first meeting, the James Wood and Clarke County boys’ soccer teams couldn’t manage to decide who was the better team in another meeting.

This time, the pair battled to a scoreless tie Monday at Kelican Stadium.

“I thought that we did some good things,” Colonels coach Brian Sullivan said. “We’re a young team and we’re still building. We had a number of really good opportunities to score. We just couldn’t capitalize on them.”

For most of the contest the Colonels (0-1-2) seemed to dominate play but after eight shots on goal in the first half and another six in the second half couldn’t manage to put the ball in the Eagles’ net.

“It was tough out there but overall I thought that we played really well,” Eagles coach Patrick Casey said.

Although Clarke County (1-0-2) spent most of the game defending its goal against a relentless James Wood attack, it was the Eagles who seemed to put the ball into the Colonels’ net.

With less than two minutes left in the first half, Eagles forward Brenden Haun broke loose in the Colonels penalty area and shot the ball past goalkeeper Hayden Armstrong for what looked like a goal, but the linesman whistled Haun for being offsides.

“The ref called it offsides by his foot,” Casey said. “That was a tough one to slip away. I thought that we had the momentum and it was a good time to get a goal. It just didn’t happen.”

Haun’s near goal did give the Eagles some momentum and they responded by taking eight shots on James Wood’s goal in the half.

With the temperature dropping, neither side produced much offense in the second half. The Colonels managed to attempt six goals to Clarke County’s five, but only one shot had any chance of breaking the deadlock.

“I thought that we had more possession of the ball,” Sullivan said. “We may have dominated play in that sense, but they did a great job of keeping us off the board. They bent a lot but never broke.”

With seven minutes left in the game, Eagles fullback Cody Sowers drew a yellow card when he committed a foul inside the Clarke County penalty area. The ensuing penalty kick by Xavier Kallash-Kyler went straight at Eagles goalkeeper Dalton Crandall who made an easy save to keep the game tied.

Clarke County had one last chance in regulation to pull out the win, but a free kick by Matias Camacho-Bruno hit the crossbar from 20 yards out.

Neither side was able to generate any offense in the two overtime periods. James Wood was the only team to attempt a shot and it didn’t require a save from Crandall.

“I thought both teams really played hard tonight,” Casey said. “Wood put a lot of pressure on our goal. They really limited our opportunities.”