By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — It was a Long night at Jack Groce Stadium on Aug. 19, where Watauga High School’s varsity men’s soccer team did a good job of controlling Patton’s attack to carve out a 3-1 win.
Oh, the game was the usual two halves of 40 minutes each and a normal halftime, but Maddrey Long opened scoring for Watauga with 31:08 remaining in the first half. He took a centering pass from Quincy Honeycutt near the right corner and ripped it past the Panthers goalkeeper inside the far left post to give his team the early lead.
A hard-fought, even “chippy” battle between the Pioneers and the Morganton-based Patton 11 took up most of the first half — until with 4:02 remaining, Mason Long pummeled a shot from the left side, almost 40 yards out from the net. A startled goalkeeper couldn’t get to it in time, giviing the Pioneers a still-tenuous, 2-0 lead going into intermission.
At tje 21:18 mark of the second half, Watauga senior midfielder Elijah Cain appeared to get his feet tangled up with one of the Patton forwards. In tripping and falling forward, Cain fell into his opponent from the rear, taking him to the ground, too. The mishap occurred on the left side of the penalty area and the Panthers were awarded a penalty kick by the referee, which was successful.
Suddenly, a game that seemed all but in Watauga’s control looked more worrisome at 2-1 for the Pioneer faithful in the stands and on the sideline, especially as some of the momentum seemed to swing in the visitors’ favor.
The match see-sawed back and forth for the first 36 minutes of the 40-minute second half. Then, with 3:42 remaining in the game, Mason Long whistled another long shot, this one from 32 yards out with his left foot, from smack dab in the middle of the football hash marks for the game’s final score.
“It wasn’t the prettiest soccer,” admitted Pioneer head coach Josh Honeycutt after the final buzzer had sounded, “but i guess we will take the ugly win. We have a lot of things to work on going forward, including staying within our style of play regardless of what the opposing team does. We prefer a possession-type game with shorter passes, working the ball down the field rather than playing the ball in the air and the kind of long, downfield balls that Patton seemed to prefer tonight. They took us away from our game and we have to work on that, as well as being more aggressive in attacking with our defense. We have good team speed, so we need to leverage that with attacking the ball on defense and immediately initiating counterattacks. With our speed, we can catch teams off guard.”
Next up for Watauga is a challenge at Hibriten in South Caldwell on Monday, Aug. 24.
BONUS PHOTOS
All photographic images by David Rogers for Blowing Rock News
