Boy's Soccer: Knights pick up offensive 5-2 win

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

MIDDLETOWN-The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Boy’s Soccer team wasn’t in a do-or-die game and their opening game of the 2016 Sheffler-Ford Tournament against the Governor Thomas Johnson High School Patriots most certainly was nowhere close to the pressure that the Knights will feel over the course of the season.

But, it didn’t matter as the Knights played a fantastic opener and took down the patriots by a score of 5-2, putting themselves in an excellent position to win the Sheffler-Ford Tournament based on the amount of goals they scored and their victory in the mandatory penalty shootout.

In a tournament format that gives a team three points for a win, one for a tie, one point for every goal scored, and one point for the mandatory penalty shootout competition, consistent offense is key for a team to win the Sheffler-Ford tournament and the Knights dished it out in droves against the Patriots.

Now, keep this in mind. This will not be the same style of soccer that you will see in a playoff game or even in some of the more serious regular season contests coming up this season as the goal in those games will be to simply win and not score as much as is possible.

But, for the Middletown fan seeing a sneak peak of what the Knights’ offense can do when it is blasting on full cylinders has to be one of the more exciting things coming into this year.

And, the most exciting thing for the Knights’ fans should be how well Middletown spread their offense and scored from many different players in many different positions.

Middletown goals came from seniors Josh Woozley (who had 2), Luke Ahalt, Evan Joseph, and Grant Brandenburg with the Knights showing off a wide array of options they have in the goal scoring department.

Middletown was locked into the game from the jump as the Knights would score the first three goals of the contest and register the first six shots on goal of the game essentially dominating possession and the flow of the game from the opening whistle.

But, the Patriots would get back up and try to climb back in late in the first half as two quick, unanswered goals by the Patriots made it 3-2 at the half. As their lead had disappeared from three to one and needing more goals to put themselves in a good spot to win the tournament the Knights would come out punching again in the second half.

Throughout the game Middletown played with a ferocious offensive pace and a physical mentality which wore the Patriots down, with the second half being no exception to this rule as Middletown would come out and score two to make it a 5-2 contest which is where things would finish.

There was one little bit of business left to clean up as the mandatory penalty shootout and a point in the tournament standings was still up for grabs and the Knights would take that to winning the penalty shootout.

In terms of the tournament standings the three points for a win plus a point for each of the five goals and a point for the penalty shootout would leave Middletown at the top of the tournament standings with nine points.

Walkersville, who drew with Linganore by a score of 3-3 will come in with five points in second place after winning their penalty shootout against the Lancers, while Linganore will hold third place with four points with the Patriots bringing up the rear with two points in fourth place.

Middletown will resume action early this morning as they’ll take on Linganore at 9:00 a.m. searching for a Sheffler-Ford Tournament title.