Varsity Boy's Soccer: Middletown Holds Down Mavericks In 1-0 WIn

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Boy’s Soccer team has had a pretty easy go of things this season as over the course of their first three games they pretty much dominated things with the statistics that the Knights carried with them speaking for themselves.

Middletown had outscored their opponents by a 13-2 margin, had won each match by at least three goals, and had three players with multiple goals in the young season.

Middletown’s consistent demolition of teams, although fun to watch, would eventually end and the question for the Knights was when they finally played a close game, could they keep up with who they played and still win the game even if it wasn’t a blowout?

As Middletown headed into the match-up against the Eastern Tech Mavericks on Friday September 9^th with the Knights playing on just hours of rest, facing an hour long bus ride, and having to play on a grass field that was a good bit slower than the fast speedy turf field there was a chance those circumstances would have an effect on how the Knights played.

Whether they did have an effect or not is up to debate but regardless the Knights would handle their first game of the season that was close as they would take the Mavericks down on the strength of a goal from Grant Brandenburg in the first half.

Middletown would not need any help to warm their offense up as just six minutes into the contest Knights senior forward Josh Woozley would receive a pass on the left wing, complete a one touch dribble around the defender, fire a cross into the box and find senior midfielder Grant Brandenburg in the box who would calmly tap it into the open net and give the Knights a 1-0 lead with a lot of time left to play.

Unlike past games, the Knights would not pour on the goals as a Middletown team that was sapped of energy after the bus ride, the lack of rest, and the fact that it was a sweltering day across the Baltimore region left Middletown as more than happy enough to sit back, let Eastern Tech bring the pace of the game to them, and attempt to clear the ball out of danger before the Mavericks could find the back of the net.

It wasn’t just a situation where the Knights were casually sitting back either as the Mavericks would not only bring pressure but would be physically on the heels of the Knights whenever they lost possession, Eastern Tech would be aggressive in trying to get the ball back.

As senior defender Evan Joseph said after the game, “They definitely were more physical than any time we’ve ever played so far.”

Middletown would be able to defend everything that the Mavericks threw at them as they would be able to hold off all of it and give some protection to sophomore David Anderson and senior Ethan Remsberg who split time in net for the Knights.

The Knights would head home with the 1-0 win intact and feeling good about how they played as even on what wouldn’t be considered their best day, they still played well enough to pick up the win.