ROCKTON — On a night where physicality reigned supreme, it came to the surprise of no one that the first goal of the night between the Beloit Memorial and Hononegah boys soccer teams came on the heels of a red card.
Robert McCormick’s intense defensive guarding of a Purple Knights’ attacker was deemed to be too violent, and the junior defender was sent off with just over a minute left in the first half.
The infraction gave the Knights a shot at a free kick, and junior Miguel Aguilar’s shot perfectly sliced through the Indians’ defenders and into the back of the net.
The score helped Beloit surge ahead for a 4-2 victory over Hononegah on a sunny but warm and humid Thursday.
“I told the guys we can't commit that many fouls in our defensive third,” Indians’ head coach Nic Haab said. “It was only a matter of time before they took advantage of it. We need to clean that up a little bit.”
The goal seemed to spark the Knights, who had controlled possession for much of the first half but couldn’t quite find that perfect shot, just before halftime.
Just one minute and five seconds later, Beloit hit the ideal blast towards the net when Eduardo Gonazles-Terrero’s shot sailed away from the net but found teammate Abraham Perez on the right side of the box. The junior buried the shot into the goal with Hononegah goalie Jonathan Durate back on the left and unable to react in time.
“Abraham was in perfect position,” Knights’ head coach Brian Denu said. “He put himself in the right place. Sometimes you see your outside guys get too far in, but he was in the perfect place to put that home.”
Beloit went into the break with a 2-0 advantage after a first half that was filled with yellow cards and plenty of bumping and bodying from both sides.
“We're still pretty small, and this was a team that we knew would give us trouble just with their size,” Denu said. “They are big kids. They did a good job of disrupting what we were trying to do. Especially in the first half, it seemed like every time we had an opportunity we'd get fouled.”
The Knights had controlled the pace for the first 30 minutes, but several shots were made difficult by Honoengah’s defenders. Ben Clements-Jewery made a nice header save to knock the ball away on a shot, Duarte stopped a close-range try from Alan Cardoza and sophomore Banks Denu’s free kick was snuffed out minutes after the junior's try had banged off the crossbar.
“Our back line was great,” Haab said. “We started as a three back but ended up changing to a four to solidify our back line. We challenged 50-50 balls really well and made them uncomfortable when they got in space.”
The Knights went on the attack early again in the second half but Oliver Campbell, who replaced Duarte in goal after halftime, stopped a pair of close-range shots. Greyson Berke neutralized a one-on-one attempt from Beloit shortly after.
The second half also featured more back-and-forth with the Indians moving the ball into the Knights’ end more often. But Beloit’s defenders made shot selection tough on their opponents. Karl Goss’ shot was blocked by defender Brandon Luis-Aragon and a corner kick was stopped by a bevy of Knights.
“The first 70 minutes our defense was really really locked in,” goalie Beckham Denu said. “They were there with everything and doing their job.”
Denu, a senior, highlighted several defenders that he said shined on Thursday.
“Braulio Guzman-Gaytan got in there and got physical with kids,” he said. “He's a smaller kid, but he plays with heart. Alan Cardoza had a really good night. He blocked a couple shots inside the (penalty area). I saw Manny (Giles), Fabian Munoz and Brandon Luis-Aragon do a lot of good things, too.”
Denu made a bevy of nice saves throughout the night, stopping a pair of shots up on the net in both the first and second half. He finished with six saves.
“He was big for us tonight,” coach Denu said.
After several nice stops from both side, Beloit made it 3-0 with 14 minutes left in the game after a rush at the net resulted in Aguilar getting his second goal of the night.
Beckham Denu said that with the big lead it “got in our heads that we’re going to slow down a little bit.”
Jacob Wright’s close shot banked off Denu’s hands and into the net with just under five minutes left. Jared Barajas answered less than two minutes later with his goal from the left side of the box but Hononegah responded with a goal from Mason Oberheim.
“That's when I need to step up and tell them let's pick it up,” Beckham Denu added.
Still, coach Denu was happy to take away the good and the bad from the victory.
“We did a good job of — that's our game is passing and connecting,” he said. “Building up play because we're not a team that's going to send the long ball. When we struggled, we get away from that. We tried to play too much long ball. That's something that we did the same thing yesterday (a 8-0 win over Racine Horlick) We got up early, but then weren't as patient as we needed to be. We got to fine tune that a little bit.”
The Knights outshot the Indians 18-7 while shooting five corner kicks to Hononegah's three.
Haab said that being the season opener for the Indians he doesn’t expect that sloppiness from his squad to linger.
“First game, so we're not in peak physical condition right now,” the coach said. “Things were clicking, but guys had to dig in a little bit deeper. We continued to fight and we put some goals in. Being a man down, I'll take that.”
Local News
Comments / 0