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South Range cruises past Columbiana
By Kevin connelly
Columbiana
The South Range boys soccer team was ready to play from the opening whistle and Columbiana was not. The result was a lopsided 6-0 final in favor of the Raiders on Wednesday.
Sophomore Cole Frank kicked off the scoring 9:44 into the match for South Range, which spread around the scoring to five different players.
“We had good communication today,” Frank said. “At practice yesterday we worked a lot on shots, so I mean that helped a lot — keeping our shots down, putting them on target.”
Practice more than paid off for the Raiders. Head coach Alan Styer said he thought it was his team’s best game from start to finish, both offensively and defensively, all year.
“We looked pretty good — we got a lot of shots tonight,” Styer said. “Our defense worked hard tonight just keeping possession, keeping the ball at our end of the field. We really dominated possession.”
The Raiders got two more goals before the end of the half, the first from junior Nick Wiery after Columbiana goalie Ryan Marshburn cleared the ball into traffic at the 30:22 mark. The other came off the foot of sophomore Lucas Beabout, who beat his defender to a loose ball and snuck it past Marshburn with just over five minutes left.
“We were determined to start off strong this time,” Styer said. “We’ve had a bit of trouble with slow starts, so we were determined tonight to attack early and often.”
The Rebels’ offensive success continued in the second half with two goals from Landon Baer and one from Mark Vennetti. South Range (5-1-1) finished with 21 shots on goal to Columbiana’s three.
“I saw a very good South Range team,” Columbiana coach Ernie Yacovone. “They played well. They played very well. They were every bit as good as what we expected.
“My team started out nothing more than flat and what frustrated me the most was that my team was not hungry.”
Frank, who got the Raiders on the board first, was most impressed with his teammates’ play on the defensive side despite the offensive outburst.
“We were trying to play a more direct game,” Frank said. “We noticed their defense was playing a little flat, so that opened up a lot of opportunities for through balls and it worked pretty well.”
The Clippers (3-3-1, 3-1-1 ITCL Tier One) will look to regroup after a difficult loss in which they were dominated in time of possession, among other things.
“Positive and proactive,” Yacovone said of what he’s going to stress to his team going forward. “They’re very high-caliber guys — good guys — and I just need to bring out what their capabilities are.”