Mustangs take down Wildcats in SHAC action

DODSONVILLE — The Lynchburg-Clay boys soccer team hosted the Whiteoak Wildcats, defending their home field with a win. 

In Southern Hills Athletic Conference action on Monday, Sept. 29, the Lynchburg-Clay boys won by a 5-1 score over the visiting Wildcats (0-6-0, 4-8-0) in their Highland County rivalry contest. 

“This was a good game to get plenty of playing time and a little bit of rest for everybody on the roster,” LCHS head coach Jason West said. “Whiteoak is rebuilding and in the second year of their program. They did exceptional last year out of the block, and this year they have kids that really play hard, and that's something that you can build a program from.”

The first goal of the SHAC match was made by Elam Faust scoring within the first 10 minutes of action, sending the ball into the net off a corner kick that bounced, and eventually landed near Faust who scored the goal for a 1-0 lead at the 31:50 mark of the first half.

Next was Quin Wells scoring his first goal of the match at the 26:50 mark for a 2-0 lead. Wells then increased the LCHS lead to three goals with a goal at the 18:02 mark of the first half, following a save by the keeper, knocking the reflection from the save to the back of the net. 

The 3-0 score stood when halftime arrived, and that three-goal lead went to a five-goal advantage in the second half as Harley Lewis scored a goal for the Mustangs with 35:59 left in the match for a 4-0 advantage. 

LCHS (4-1-0, 8-3-1) added one last goal with 17:13 remaining in the contest as Faust scored his second goal of the match. 

“Quinn, Harley and Elam all played well,” West said.

Assists for Lynchburg-Clay were credited to Faust, Lewis and Alexander VanFleet. 

As for the match and the season, West spoke about always improving. 

“You are never satisfied as a coach,” West said. “You are always grumbling about something, but before the game today we were talking about how we had six games remaining, and now we just won one of those. We are still in position to win our league, or tie, plus we can finish with 13 wins if we win out, which in my eight years would be the best regular season record we’ve had at Lynchburg-Clay. The guys still have a lot in front of them to play for.”

Whiteoak scored their lone goal with 2:23 left in the match as Karson Arey put the ball in the back of the net with the assist from Shawn Mitchell-Cox. 

“There were some positive takeaways from tonight’s game,” WHS head coach Adam Schelling said. “We had a couple lapses early on defense, gave up a couple quick ones, but I feel like we settled down and played better defensively. We had decent possession of the field, had a few attacks on their side, and as I told the guys I feel like we were a couple passes away from connecting something together. We had just maybe too many touches, too many dribbles, and not just releasing the ball in time. We’ll work on those things and we are going to practice tomorrow and get it back, and hopefully get a win on Wednesday. 

“We had some opportunities and just didn’t capitalize. They (LCHS) are a really good team. They pass very well, and they move very well and they ran us wide, they can work it on us on this wide field.”

Coach Shelling also spoke about how his team has progressed from the start of the season to now. 

“At the start of the year we gave up a lot of goals, and had a really tough schedule starting out with a lot of hard teams,” Schelling said. “Our defense wasn’t connecting at the beginning, but about midway through the season we’ve gotten better. Our defense has locked down more, we are working the ball from the midfield and getting more advantages at the top.”

At goal for the Mustangs were Tanner Roberts and Hayden West, as Roberts totaled two saves. At goal for the Wildcats was Evan Richmond with 13 saves. 

The LCHS boys soccer team is scheduled to play again on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at home against Hillsboro at 5 p.m. in a non-conference match. Whiteoak is scheduled to play next on Wednesday, Oct. 1 on the road at Ripley with a 4:30 p.m. start.