Junior Damien Velasquez (left) and junior Kevin Nguyen (right) converge on the attacker to prevent a Troy goal.
Photos by Drew Terhall | The Daily Advocate
Junior Gavin Hayes is almost ready to do the throw in.
Sophomore Rachel Wright had a great day saving a high percentage of shots against the Lady Trojans.
Senior Kaelyn Gump is one of the two captains credited by Beasecker to help their team get through a rough patch in the second half.
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
GREENVILLE — The Greenville boys and girls soccer teams hosted Troy for a double header at Harmon Field on Sept. 5.
The Lady Wave started the day against the Lady Trojans. The team fell 4-0 after they held Troy scoreless in the first half.
Assistant coach Caitlyn Beasecker said the girls gave their best effort against a tough Troy team that probably thought they were going to have an easy time in this one.
“Coming in, I definitely know Troy came into this thinking, ‘It’s Greenville. We’re going to be able to put some points up there on the board.’ We held them 0-0 that first half. We had the best effort that I’ve seen this team play with so far,” Beasecker said.
It was anything but easy for the Lady Trojans to get past sophomore goalie Rachel Wright. In the first half, she didn’t let anything by her as she made numerous saves.
While it took time for Greenville to get on the attack, Wright held strong to keep her team in the game.
“We love having Rachel on the team. She always puts her best foot forward and puts in her maximum effort,” Beasecker said.
At the 28-minute mark, Troy senior Abbey Seger scored to get Troy on the board. Two minutes late, senior Payton Vintangeli scored to make it 2-0. Troy tacked on two more goals late in the game.
The Lady Wave didn’t implode after those two quick goals. Beasecker said the captains, seniors Kaelyn Gump and Josie Madden, stepped up and gave their team the motivation to not give up.
The Lady Wave just couldn’t get enough chances to put some goals on the board.
The boys team followed the girls game. Troy jumped out to a hot start as they scored three goals in the first 10 minutes. Greenville did get a little flustered early and gave Troy two penalty kicks. The Trojans converted on both of them. Senior Jacob Shurtz and junior Braydn Dillow both scored the penalty kicks.
Head coach Ethan Cundiff said the team is now through their tough part of the schedule after facing the top teams of the MVL. They can now take what they learned from the best of the best and move on.
“We started off with three of the top teams in the MVL. Butler, Tipp and Troy. We got those out of the way. Let’s move forward and pick off one of these other teams in the MVL,” Cundiff said.
Troy led 8-0 after the first half and scored two more goals early in the second half. The Trojans left with a 10-0 win.
Cundiff said this is a stepping stone year for them to build up the program. The team only has one player available to sub in versus the extra 11 guys Troy has on the bench.
Cundiff said with a smaller team, he took this opportunity to move guys around to different positions they might not be familiar with so they can have some sort of depth and options at each position.
He also said getting this experience in game is key. He can evaluate the players at the different positions in a real game setting.
In a year like this, there’s going to be things the team can build off of and things the team is going to want to forget.
“Each game, there’s stuff you throw out off the tape. Other stuff, you build off of,” Cundiff said.
The Lady Wave’s next game is at Kenton Ridge on Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. For the boys, they will host Tri-County North at Harmon Field on Sept. 9 at 1 p.m.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
