Brandon stays hot, tops Holly 3-0
The Brandon Blackhawks won their seventh straight game, defeating the Holly Bronchos 3-0Wednesday night in soccer action.
The teams slogged it out on a wet field, and the Bronchos held in defensively for much of the night. Anchored by the defensive play of Douglas Lutz, and strong goalkeeping from Tevin Landwerlen, Holly held the Blackhawks off the scoreboard for the first half.
“I thought we played better the first half. We did spend a lot of time in our own half, but we held them to no goals the first half. The second half we lost some of that intensity, and they wanted it a little bit more. We just couldn’t get the play to build up and get any shots on goal,” Holly head coach Matthew Sherrow said.
But Brandon continued to dominate the ball in the second half, penning the Bronchos up as the Blackhawks pushed forward time after time. Eventually, Brandon just had too many chances.
After generating just four shots on goal in the first half, Brandon unleashed 15 shots
in the second half, including eight on frame. The result was predictable as the Blackhawks scored three second half goals.
Ian Burke got the first one when Aidan Reynolds slotted a ball through to himon the break and Burke deftly finished what would prove tobe the game winner, hammering a long range shot that Landwerlen managed to get a piece of, but on a slippery night he just could not hold it
and the ball trickled over the line. Reynolds would score the other two goals for the Blackhawks, one on a similar play to Burke’s goal, and the other when he redirected Giovanni Bertholee’s corner kick into the net with 15:31 to close the scoring.
“The guys were wound up. Theywere expecting way more out of themselves. I just told themto calm down and play soccer, and everything will be fine, and it worked out that way,” Brandon head coach Shawn Lovelace said.
After a 1-3start to the season, the Blackhawks have now won seven straight
games overall, including five consecutive games in the Flint Metro League to improve to 8-3 overall and 5-2 in the league.
“This is our sixth shutout in a row,” Lovelace said. “We work defense a lot. That’s kind of been my m.o. as a coach. We finally got it tuned ina little bit. We played a different formation and mixed some guys up, and I think we’re getting close to what weneed to be putting on the field.”
The Blackhawks will look to continue their winning streak Thursday night when they host Flint Kearsley in
another Flint Metro League game.
The Bronchos fall to 1-9 overall and 0-7 in the FML in what is a rebuilding year after graduating a slew of seniors last year. The Bronchos have a tough non-league road trip to Stoney Creek on Thursday before getting back into league play with three games next week, starting with a home match against Swartz Creek on Monday.
“We’ve got a young squad. We’re still working on our chemistry, but we’ve got a lot of talent out there. We’ve just got to put it together,” Sherrow said.