Sectional Soccer Champs!
History was made yet again on Burgbacher Field in Middlebourne on Saturday as the Tyler Consolidated boys soccer team won the program’s first ever Sectional Title. Hosting Morgantown Trinity the Silver Knights scored three goals to take the win, as well as the title.
“It was great,” said head coach of the Knights Scott Wall. “I’m so glad for the boys and I’m so proud of every one of them. It was a good game, we played well against a very determined Trinity team. It was our game to lose, but I’m really glad we didn’t.”
Junior Justin Cooper scored all three Knight goals in the game, one on a throw in and one on a corner kick. Senior Spencer Kinnard had three assists on the goals. The Knight goal keeper, Skylar Kinnard had only one save on the day, which says a lot about the Knight defense.
A slow first half, with a lot of passing and only one score by the home team had every one in attendance, including the coach, on edge at the beginning of the second.
“I was relieved when we got the second goal,” coach Wall said. “And I wish we could have scored the third goal earlier, but that’s the nature of the beast I guess.”
Trinity, a co-ed team, defeated Magnolia earlier in the week in order to get to the final game, but the Knight defense proved to great for them to get past.
“We did a good job controlling the mid-field,” Wall said. “This team beat us 6-2 last year, so we knew they weren’t going to lay down for us. Our guys were focused and ready.”
“Alex Jones and Aaron Estep did a very good job defending in this game with some long kicks coming their way quite a bit. Jeremy Smith played very well; Zach Robinson had a good look about him; Waylon Rosenlieb had one of his better games and Giavanni Fortos seemed to settle down more in this one . Everybody played well, I was pleased with all of them.”
On Thursday the Silver Knights will travel to Brooke High School for the Region I championship game against Weir. A field they have played on earlier in the year, in the OVAC championships, falling to Stuebenville. The Weir Red Riders have already defeated the Silver and Black once this season by a score of 5-2, and will undoubtedly bring their A game to the soccer field.
“They are a very good soccer team,” Wall said. “They have very skilled players on both offense and defense, but I think we can play with them. We need to make better choices on the field, need to pick and choose when to go on the attack, but if we play like we can, it should be a good game.”
“The Sectional win was great, but we’d love to have that Regional title, we really would.”
Should the Silver Knights come out on top in Thursday game at Brooke, they will play the following week in Beckley in pursuit of a state championship.
Thursday’s game at Brooke is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.