Eagles lose to Hornets in overtime
Doughty scores game-winner as Great Mills rallies from 2-goal deficit to win
The Great Mills Hornets did not have a lead in Tuesday night’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference boys soccer game with visiting North Point until when it mattered the most.
Just over six minutes into the first overtime period, Great Mills sophomore defender William “Bubby” Doughty scored off of a diving header crossed by senior Tucker Protzman to complete a comeback that saw the Hornets rally from a 2-0 halftime deficit to win 3-2.
“It was a relief and it was exciting,” Doughty said. “I started off pretty bad and as the game kept on going, I picked up how they were playing.”
“One of our big things this year is set plays,” Great Mills head coach Matt Protzman said. “Whether it’s direct kicks or corner kicks, we want to try to capitalize on those, so we’ve really been working on those. We had a perfect execution of playing our ball to the back side. Will Doughty had a beautiful diving header off of Tucker Protzman’s cross. He played that ball just perfectly.”
Coach Protzman added: “We got off to a slow start. We made some defensive mistakes, put ourselves in a hole 0-2 and we had to fight out of it. Last year we were down 0-3 to North Point at halftime and ended up coming back and winning 4-3. So this is kind of reminiscent of last year.”
North Point (6-3) started off fast, scoring less than three minutes into the game as senior forward Austin Weeks put a shot past Great Mills junior goalkeeper Gerig Thoman off of a cross from Eagles junior Jawad Adams.
The Eagles extended the lead to 2-0 off of a corner kick by sophomore Jimi Ojo-Ade and that would be the eventual halftime score.
It’s unclear what Protzman said to his team, but after the half Great Mills (8-1) came back to score two goals and tie the game in the second half. The Hornets took close to 20 shots in the half, as North Point junior goalkeeper Tyler Perrie had 11 saves compared to a complete shutout and no saves in the first half.
“From a ball movement standpoint, I thought we played really well,” coach Protzman said. “We’re really starting to connect and move the ball and give
ourselves opportunities and it showed. We were getting chance after chance on goal. Their keeper did an amazing job stopping a lot of goals that probably should have gone in and ended this game in regulation versus overtime, but he just played an amazing game.”
Senior captain Michael Salguero scored Great Mills’ first goal of the night with a powerful blast from outside the 18yard box that found its way into the top right corner of the goal just over Perrie’s head, trimming the Eagles’ lead to 2-1.
“Michael Salguero always has a great game, too,” coach Protzman said. “He sets the tempo for our team. But just working the ball, his fast-paced style of play building the attack, but it’s not just him. All of our guys were doing a really good job holding the attack. We had a good team attack going.”
The goal motivated Great Mills, and soon after, junior Ulises Torres also got a shot past Perrie to tie the game at 2.
North Point went a player down later when Weeks got in a confrontation with another player and received a red card
and was ejected from the game, as well as head coach Doug DeCook.
With a man down it was hard for the Eagles to control the ball, but Perrie kept his team in the game, including saving a penalty kick shot by Hornets junior Matthew Naylor with 1 minute left in regulation.
“It went good and we fought hard,” Perrie said. “The other team came back just as strong. I felt like I put up a good performance against them, but they got the best of us. It’s just going to push us to get better and work harder every day. That’s what we will do and we will come out better next year.”
The game went to overtime and Doughty scored the game-winning goal and his teammates swarmed him in congratulations.
DeCook watched from the stands with the rest of the fans.
The Eagles are scheduled to be at Lackey at 6 tonight.
“It was a typical SMAC game,” he said. “It was a heated contest. We love those kinds of games, getting ready for playoffs. Some of the calls and bounces didn’t go our way, but that’s soccer. Hopefully it’s a learning experience before we get to playoffs. You have to take the positives out of it.”
Great Mills was slated to be at Calvert on Thursday night and scheduled next to host Chopticon at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
“It’s one game at a time. I said that after our one loss to Leonardtown two weeks ago,” coach Protzman said. “We’re taking it one game at a time. Now our most important game is Calvert on Thursday. So we just have to keep working and hopefully we will peak at the right time as we get to playoffs.”