It’s Champion’s Day in AAC soccer victory

October 5, 2011 at 12:06a.m.

HUBBARD

Champion High earned a 1-0 boys soccer victory Tuesday night on a soggy field at Hubbard, despite being out-shot 14-6 by the Eagles. The win keeps the Flashes (8-2, 6-1) in the All-America Conference American Division race behind undefeated Lakeview.

Champion has yielded just 10 goals this season and junior keeper John Rable was called on for eight saves Tuesday night, including at least three that thwarted good Hubbard chances.

“Obviously the defense is our strength, but in the past two weeks the midfield and offense have been coming together and I think right now we’re pretty much a whole team,” Champion coach Shawnn Wilson said. “Our strength at the beginning of the season was defense, but right now I’d say its everybody on the field.

“Dakota Coulter, Cody Martinko, Kyle Landacre, Ryan Miller, Zach Lemon, those guys back there are doing an outstanding job. They know when to make their runs, you see them advance from the back, and they know who to switch it too. They are just playing all together.”

The Flashes posted a 3-1 victory over Hubbard (5-5-1, 3-4) in their first meeting, but Hubbard had the run of play for much of the game Tuesday and had a number of good scoring chances, especially in the first half.

“Our guys came out with a lot more intensity tonight, it was an entirely different game,” first-year Hubbard coach Cory Reinard said. “Playing on your home field brings the spirits up and our last game was canceled so these guys were ready to play.

“Finishing scoring chances is definitely a problem we’ve had this season along with allowing teams to hang around too long.”

The Flashes tallied the game’s lone goal in the 23rd minute of the second half when Eric Day drilled in a shot from the top of the penalty area. Rusty Banks assisted on the goal.

“We try to move the ball a lot and we’ve been doing it well since we made a couple of switches,” Wilson said. “Not being able to move the ball in and out on this field [because of the mud], we had to go back to the old way which is try to get the ball and kick it over the top to the two fastest runners.

“On a field like this it’s whoever can sneak one in and we did tonight. Hubbard played an outstanding game, it was going back and forth. They played a lot better than last time.”

Champion has a senior-laden team, while the Eagles have just five 12th-graders on the roster.

“We are junior heavy on the roster. We have five seniors and they’ll be missed but we also have strong sophomore and freshman groups,” Reinard said.

“Possession and ball movement are our strengths and we’re really starting to work on being more physical and aggressive.”