LIONS FALL TO BRONCOS IN FIRST ROUND
The Brookwood Broncos avenged and early season 1-0 victory by the Lions, and came away with the win in the opening round of the 2012 Georgia High School State Soccer Playoffs 2-1 on Tuesday night. The loss ends the 2012 season for the Lions, whose performance in the game was some of the best soccer they have treated their fans to this year.
“Getting down early really hurt,” stated Lion Coach Ryan Sutton, “but the guys never gave up. That is all you can ask. Our guys can be proud; they left it on the field tonight. We have had better results, but player for player this was one of our best games of the season.” Despite the Lions having 3 decent looks at goal in the first seven minutes, it would be the Broncos who would get on the board first. At the nine minute mark a throw in from the far side of the field found the head of a Brookwood player. The deflection slid inside the far post for a 1-0 Bronco lead.
The Lions and Broncos would play end-to-end soccer for the next 26 minutes. In the 21st minute, senior Lucas Raposo would hit the post for the Lions, before the Broncos once again broke through. A long pass played to space led to a race to the ball at the top of the box between Lion Keeper Daryl Sack and a Brookwood Forward. Sack dove but could not quite reach the ball, and Brookwood’s forward took his shot at net. Senior defender Michael Valenzuela’s great effort to get back to the net to cover was frustrated when the low bouncing shot deflected off of him and into the net. “That was a weird play and tough pill to swallow,” said Sutton. However, the play seemed to increase the Lion intensity in the match, as just a minute later Junior Forward Jeremy Rector ran down a long ball in the box and played a brilliant cross to the Bronco back post. Senior Forward Juan Herrera was home, and put the ball in the net with a sliding one-timer. The goal sent the teams to half time with the Lions trailing 2-1.
The second half was a back and forth intense battle that saw both teams with chances, but the Lions as the aggressors. The Lion midfield played some of its best soccer of the season as they challenged everywhere for every ball. Great efforts were turned in by Ryan Fitton, Rual Diaz, Sahil Mahajan, Taylor Williamson, Evan Pantels and Danny Rodriquez. Defensively the Lions had each others back all night, with countless double team efforts by Raposo, Valenzuela, Grayson Guldenschuh, Kevin Zuluaga and Jack Winfrey continually frustrating the Bronco attack. Their efforts led to several opportunities for the Lions – but at the end of the game the score remained 2-1.
There we six offside calls in the second half against the Lions – which ultimately became the story of the night. On two separate occasions the Lions seemed to find the back of the net, only to have the goals disallowed by the offside prone linesman. “We’ll look at the video, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter, those calls were made and we have to live with it,” said a frustrated but proud Sutton. “We knew by pressing as hard as we were that we were going to give Brookwood a few looks in the second half too. You only have one chance in the playoffs, so we were pushing forward at every turn. That left Daryl somewhat exposed at times, but he played extremely well in goal and did what he had to do with those counter attacks which let our offense continue to do work. Other than those few opportunities we gladly conceded, I felt we took it to them in the second half. I know our fans feel the same way, and I could not be prouder of how our guys played tonight.”
On Wednesday, May 2nd, the Lady Lions kick off their pursuit of the state championship with their first round game also against Brookwood. By virtue of the Lady Lions regular season Region VII championship, they have secured the home field advantage during playoffs. Please come out to Lion Stadium to cheer them on! Game time for the girl’s match is 7:00 PM.
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