Dogie men come up just short

The Newcastle High School boys soccer team had a rough go of it last week as they dropped two conference games, against Douglas on Thursday and Rawlins on Saturday, by the slightest 1-2 margin each. Head coach Sally Hoover admitted that she and her crew knew they should win against the Bearcats and Outlaws, but that wasn’t how the contests played out.

“The week didn’t turn out like we had hoped,” said Hoover. “We went into the game against Douglas a little flat, and without a whole lot of energy and you just can’t do that, no matter who you are playing.”

The contest was a back-and-forth battle for the first half when Douglas came to town Thursday, but the Bearcats were able to get one past the Dogie keeper Will Beastrom with 19 minutes left to play in the first frame.

“When they got that goal, we just seemed to deflate, which is a dangerous thing to do in soccer,” Hoover explained. “But, I was happy to see that we didn’t let down enough for them to get another one in before the break.”

As second half action got under way, it was a determined Dogie team that took the pitch. Much of the game was played in the middle of the field with both teams fighting for offensive opportunities. With 22 minutes to play, Colter Christensen found the back of the net on a shot from about 18 yards out off an assist by Gabe Hoover, to tie the game at 1-1.

“We went out in the second half, knowing what we needed to do,” Hoover said. “Unfortunately, even after we got on the board, it didn’t seem to light a fire under our guys as scoring usually does.”

Newcastle wasn’t without offensive opportunities throughout the contest, and took 11 shots on goal compared to Douglas’ nine. However, Newcastle struggled to finish on those opportunities, which Hoover admitted has presented itself as an issue lately.

In the last five minutes, Douglas made a push to score and were able to punch one in off of a corner kick with 1:47 to play to take the 2-1 lead and held it as the clock ticked down to zero.

“They got three corner kicks in that last five minutes, and corners are hard to defend,” Hoover said. “After that, we bounced one off the crossbar so we gave ourselves opportunities, but a minute and a half is not a lot of time to score.”

The Dogies had a day to recover, and a long bus ride to Rawlins to prepare for their next match-up of the week.

Hoover was missing a starter in Jacob Powers for the game, so the team had to do a quick restructuring of their game plan for the contest.

“Rawlins makes short, five-yard passes and they do it really well,” Hoover said. “We had planned for Jacob to be a sweeper to try to mitigate that threat, but had to readjust. As such, it took us about 10 minutes to settle in, but from there things went a little better.”

The Outlaws got on the board five minutes into the contest. Though Skyler Cummings and the defensive line were covering the Outlaws well, Rawlins was able to get a lucky shot off
that went over Cummings and just over the impressive wingspan of Beastrom to find the back of the net.

“It was really a crazy shot, that just barely fit between Will’s hands and the crossbar,” Hoover explained. “We were there and ready, so there’s just not much we could have done to stop that one.”

Fortunately, the Dogies were able to rebound quickly from that goal to hold the Outlaws out of the goal for the remainder of the first half.

“We only had four shots on frame in the first half, but we had six others that were so close it was crazy,” Hoover said. “They either hit the crossbar or were just an inch wide, or they would have been in. We were challenging them way more than they were challenging us.”

Indeed, the Dogies ended the game with 14 shots on goal versus Rawlins’ nine, however, only the shots that go in count in the end.

According to Hoover, it was a very physical game and the official was hesitant to call much of anything against either team, which she noted is detrimental to her squad as they are not a very physical team.

With 31 minutes to play, the Outlaws were making a run at the goal when Zach Orsborn stepped up and won the ball and cleared it out, but was called for a foul.

“Zach made a really good play on the ball, but the kid —who was half his size — ran into him and bounced off of him,” Hoover said. “On film, it was clean, but they gave Rawlins a PK on that.”

Unfortunately, they were able to find the back of the net, extending their lead to 2-0.

The Dogies continued to fight and made several runs at the goal, and finally, with 20 minutes left to play, Jacob Abu Zhara executed a corner kick to Caden Esposito who headed it into the goal to cut Rawlins’ lead in half.

“It was frustrating that we lost, but if we had been able to finish, it would have been 10-2 in our favor,” Hoover speculated. “We were really good at finishing earlier in the season, so I’m not sure what changed in the last couple of games. However, we need to address that this week.”

This week, the Dogies are focused on rebounding from the conference losses, but the challenge will be a big one. Their first contest of the week is against Torrington Trailblazers at home on Thursday, beginning at 6 p.m., then they will travel to Buffalo Bison on Saturday to take on the Bison. The ‘Blazers are ranked at No. 2 in the polls this week, while the Bison fell just out of the top five after being ranked fifth last week.