Everybody duck! Peebles’ Paxton Ryan goes flying into the crowd in a hustle play from the Indians’ 2-0 district quarterfinal win at Whiteoak. Ryan scored the second Peebles goal as the Tribe advanced in tournament play. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
Peebles’ Chase Shoemaker’s first half goal proved to be all the Indians needed in their 2-0 win over Whiteoak in the Division V district quarterfinals on October 17. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
It had been over a month since Coach Stone Crothers and his Peebles Indians boys soccer squad had tasted victory, but they chose a good time to snap that skid. After dropping seven consecutive games, six of those in which they didn’t score, the Indians traveled to Bright Elementary on October 17 to face the Whiteoak Wildcats in a Division V district quarterfinal match up. This was the first varsity season for the Wildcats and they had fared very well, winning 10 games in the regular season.
But on this night of postseason action it would be the visiting Indians who avenged a 1-0 regular season loss, turning the tables and throwing the clean sheet at the Wildcats, getting goals from Chase Shoemaker and Paxton Ryan and the shutout performance between the pipes from keeper Gage Daniels, advancing to the district semifinals with a 2-0 victory.
“The first game we played here we didn’t play like our normal selves, but today it was much better, a complete team performance,” said Coach Crothers after the win. “This was our second shutout of the season and we will take it, a win is a win, especially in the tournament.”
It did not take long for the Indians to get what turned out to be the only goal they needed when Shoemaker found the net 10 minutes into the contest, as he got his foot on a ball off a corner kick from the team’s leading scorer Connor Gross. Though most of the action stayed on the Peebles end, that was the only score of the first half.
The second half was much of the same with the action staying mostly on the Indians’ end of the pitch as the visitors clung to that slim one-goal advantage. The Peebles defense was solid and when the Wildcats got near the goal, Daniels was up to the task. A very important insurance goal came from Ryan with 4:35 to play, putting the finishing touch on the Indians’ sixth win of the season overall and one that moved them to the Division V district semifinals.
“We had been playing the same defense pretty much all year and our guys said that we just maybe needed to change something,” said Coach Crothers. “We hadn’t won in over a month so we made changes, moved Colyn (Sims) to stopper and Hayden (Browning) to sweeper and it worked out well.”
“I know that our next game will be a lot, lot tougher and we will need to play a perfect game to advance.”
In the district semis, the Indians faced #1 seeded Minford on Monday, October 21, the game being played on the turf at Zane Trace High School. The Tribe saw their season come to a close as they fell 8-0 to the top seed.
