Late flurry lifts St. George’s over ECS
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St. George’s soccer coach Tony Whicker wasn’t too thrilled with the first 77 minutes of Thursday’s game against ECS. He wasn’t complaining about the last three though.
The Gryphons (6-10, ranked fourth in The Commercial Appeal’s Super Six) scored twice in the final three minutes to steal a 3-2 victory over the sixth-ranked Eagles at Legends Field on the ECS campus.
“Good finish, that’s about all I can say,” laughed Whicker. “They outplayed us in the second half. They played with a lot of intensity and they wanted it more than we did.”
But it was St. George’s that got the victory after Stephen Oliver had apparently wrapped things up for ECS with a goal that made it 2-1 with just seven minutes to go.
Landon Spadafora, who scored St. George’s firsthalf goal, beat his defender to the endline before crossing for attacking fullback Eric Rivera-Peraza who poked it home to tie it. Moments later Carson Schelp sent in a perfect corner for Blake Nicolia, who rose above the pack to head in the winner with virtually the last touch of the match.
“Blake’s only just come back from a concussion,” said Whicker. “He’s big and strong. ... We were doing a drill in practice and he was coming up and scoring a lot of goals, so we threw him forward.”
It was a frustrating finish for the Eagles, who also scored on Peter Linn’s penalty seven minutes into the game. ECS goalkeeper Jack Oliver saved a penalty from Tim Whicker two minutes later to get the game off to a rousing start.
“It was back and forth all game long,” said ECS coach Jordan Thompson. “We did very well on our set pieces; (Stephen) Oliver hit the post on one, scored one that was rightfully disallowed and then scored the other one.
“We just had a threeminute lapse and it cost us. But credit to them; it wasn’t a cheap goal. We’ll see them again and we’re excited about seeing them again.”
IN OTHER SOCCER GAMES
Cole Cannnon scored both of the goals as CBHS, ranked first in the Super Six, improved to 6-0 with a 2-0 win over MUS. ... Collierville defeated White Station 2-0 behind goals from Naveen Varadharaj and Sean Baker. ... Kingsbury blanked Cordova in 14-AAA, 3-0. Richard Navarro, Jose Rangel and Boriz Vazquez scored for the Falcons.
IN OTHER GAMES
Bartlett got homers from Parker Wilson and Andrew Miller to defeat Neuqua Valley-Ill. 7-4 and improve to 13-2. ... ECS got a fine start from Riley Watkins and went on to defeat Harding, 6-4. Jake Criswell homered for the Lions.
In the USA Classic, topranked CBHS lost for the first time this season after 17 straight wins as Springboro (Ohio) came out on top, 3-2. ... Jarod Wright got a six-run second inning on the way to improving to 4-0 as Arlington beat MUS, 11-1 to advance in the winners bracket.
Ohio State signee Kaylan Pugh of St. Mary’s scored 29 points and Ole Miss signee Torri Lewis of MHEA added 19 to lead Tennessee to a 77-75 win over Arkansas at the Mike Conley all-star game in Little Rock.