Published: October 10, 2008 12:05 am            

Terre Haute South opens sectional with 3-0 win against Northview

TERRE HAUTE — Terre Haute South’s defensive back four shortened the field, enabling the Braves to outshoot Northview 12-2 in shots on goal — and more importantly — to earn a solid 3-0 victory in a first round game of the Terre Haute North boys soccer sectional on Thursday.

South generated just three of those shots in the first half, leading 1-0.

But in the second half, South ratcheted up its physical play. After misfiring on five straight scoring opportunities, the Braves finally pulled away, scoring a pair of goals just over three minutes apart in the game’s waning moments.

“It’s hard going up against a team like Northview,” admitted South coach Eric Graves. “They are extremely athletic. All their guys are much taller than our guys, some of them are much faster, more aggressive.

“We just possessed the ball better, we moved the ball around better. We got more opportunities on goal. A lot of that had to do with our defense pushing up to midfield and keeping the ball on the offensive half [of the field].”

South’s lone goal in the first 40 minutes came off the foot of junior Tony Garcia at the 17:22 mark.

Garcia took possession of the ball just inside the midfield stripe, drove straight toward the right upright. Then from about 10 yards out, he kicked the ball across his body just inside the left upright, caroming straight down into the net off the crossbar.

Meanwhile, Northview had nary a shot on goal or corner kick in the first half, yet trailed just 1-0 at halftime.

“The calls king of changed [in the second half],” said Northview coach Don Bryan. “The first half we had a lot more calls for us against [South]. Then it kind of flip-flopped in the second half. I’d say, maybe we had four or five fouls the first half … we had closer to 15 in the second half.

“It’s kind of a tale of two halves. Played tight [defensively] in the first half, just not getting the scoring opportunities. Just not getting the right kind of attack we were wanting to do. South didn’t do anything we didn’t expect. I just don’t think we ever got our offense untracked.”

After missing six good scoring opportunities at the outset of the second half, Zach Pigg directed a pretty entry pass to a streaking Ian Cook — who would have made South baseball coach Kyle Kraemer proud. Cook’s slide-and-kick maneuver directed the ball past the onrushing Reeves with 14:04 to go.

Just over a minute later, South’s Josh Pigg was nailed with a hard kick off the foot of a Northview player near midfield in a vulnerable spot. He recovered — hobbling a bit — to track down the ball and bring it down the field only to be tackled from behind deep inside the Knight’s zone.

However, teammate Nathan Wheeler’s point blank attempt on the resulting penalty kick was saved nicely by Reeves.

Just moments later, South picked up that elusive third goal. Bubeck scored on a header, assisted by Josh Pigg, with 10:40 remaining in the game.

For Northview, their only two shots on goal were by Drew Snyder and Brandon Hathaway. South goalkeeper Jordan Welsh earned the shutout.

“Our defense really deserved a pat on the back today, giving our offense so many opportunities. Finally getting the ball past Cainan Reeves, a very talented keeper,” Graves added. “They’re very organized.”

“Don’t want the season to end this way,” Bryan lamented. “Good group of seniors … guys that have won a chunk of games in their four years. Have really turned the boys program around.”

Looking ahead to Saturday’s afternoon semifinal match, Graves mentioned, “We’re going to plan for a doubleheader but we definitely will not downplay West Vigo. We expect them to play much better than they did against us in the normal season.”



Terre Haute South 1 2 — 3

Northview 0 0 — 0

TH South goals — Tony Garcia 17:22 1H; Ian Cook (Zach Pigg) 14:04 2H; Dylan Bubeck (Josh Pigg) 10:50 2H.

Next — Terre Haute South (9-8-1) will oppose West Vigo in the second semifinal game of the Terre Haute North sectional at noon on Saturday. South Vermillion takes on Terre Haute North at 10 a.m. in the other semifinal game. The championship game is at 6 p.m. Northview (5-13) finished its season.

        

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