Junior Varsity Boy's Soccer: Knights Buck Trend; Win Big Against North

By Ben Spector

Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Junior Varsity Boy’s Soccer team decided during their game against the North Hagerstown Hubs that the trend of playing in close games, while fun, was going to have to come to an end.

Middletown would do so in style as the Knights dispatched the Hubs, 4-0, with the Knights producing their biggest offensive output to date against North Hagerstown.

Middletown would come out from the jump with a goal off bucking their role as “Cardiac Kids” as the Knights would jump out to a two goal lead before the halftime whistle. Both of those goals would come off the foot of sophomore midfielder Matthew Barlow as he would tally his first and second goals of the year to give Middletown the advantage.

The lead could have been much more as Barlow’s offensive torrent during the first half was limited by the fact that three of his shots ended up smacking against the frame of the goal with the only denying Barlow being a thick piece of white goal frame.

If not for the woodwork of the net, Middletown might have had the ability to coast in the second half as they would have held on to a four or five goal lead at the break and would have been able to coast to an easy win over the Hubs.

Instead, Middletown would still have some work to do when the second half started up but would handle that task easily as tallies from sophomore defenders Holden Coblentz and Eric McMunn in the second half would be the finishing blows as Middletown would jump back into the win column with their 4-0 victory.

While it was a potent offense that helped separate the Knights in the contest it was a strong defensive effort that made sure there was separation between the Knights and Hubs throughout the course of the game, with the back line helping freshman goalkeeper Daniel Robison post his first clean sheet of the season.

That was also the Knights first clean sheet of the season and something that Middletown hopes to continue as a team as Middletown’s defense snapped back into shape after a 3-2 loss against the Eastern Tech Mavericks.

Middletown will hope to continue their new trend of wins that are not as climactic in the future as Middletown has proven, after the Eastern Tech and North Hagerstown games, that they have an offense that has the ability to flex their muscles when they want to and put goals in the back of the net at a fervent pace.

After scoring only one goal, in the final minutes to boot, in their match against the Century High School Knights, Middletown has followed that up by scoring six goals over the past two matches.

This will only get better for Middletown as not only have Coblentz and McMunn found the scoring touch, but Barlow as well which give the Knights three legitimate options to score from as well as a large amount of secondary options which will help Middletown develop scoring chances and allow Barlow, Coblentz, and McMunn to cash them in.

That offense will prove crucial if the Knights want to continue winning games by large margins and not having to stress about the last second victories. That is all secondary for the Knights at this moment as regardless of the score they’ll take the wins when they get them.