The county’s largest high school and smallest high school met at Mehock Field for a soccer battle under the lights on Monday. In the two teams’ first varsity game in any sport, Temple Christian Crusaders beat the Mansfield Senior Tygers, 9-4.
“This was a game I had massively circled on the schedule,” said Temple head coach Eric Humble, noting that he had personally sought out the match to beef up his schedule. The Crusaders’ match went exactly to plan.
The game was tight for the first 40 minutes as teams traded goals and possession through the first half for a 3-2 Temple lead at intermission. The back half of the match was markedly different.
“We thought if we could get two or three in the net, we could get them down a little bit and just keep adding to it,” Humble said.
The Crusaders’ aggressive style swarmed the ball in the second half, pushing the ball to open space for deep runs at the opposing goal. An opportunistic Crusaders front line cashed in the opportunities for a 6-2 second half.
Temple Christian’s Jacob McClelland was a frequent visitor to his opponents goal box. The speedy junior forward scored every other goal for the Crusaders, netting Temple’s first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth goal for a 5 goal outburst.
“We were focusing mostly on possession and coach had a gameplan laid out, said McClelland. “He came over and looked at the field, saw that it was nice and wide. We thought we could take advantage of that, take the ball down the wing and slide it across. And about four or five of our goals were from that, so I think we executed that pretty well.”
“Their (players) up-top beat us. When you score four goals, I look to win a game; but when you give up nine goals you don’t win any games,” said Tygers’ head coach Bryan Debolt. “Their top just had too much speed.”
TCS forward Nick Standridge tacked on three of his own. Caleb Walters dribbled his way to a sliver of daylight and smacked in an additional goal for the Crusaders.
For the Tygers, Kyle Weese, Jose Carrales, Ethan Luedy and Abou Diomande all scored a single goal. Keeper Chris Cobb grabbed six saves.
“I think we’ve hit some adversity. In the beginning of the season, we were hopefully looking to win a couple more games than what we have right now,” noted Debolt. “But I think our leadership is developing and starting to lead this team in a positive direction.
The Tygers move to 2-4-1 on the season and will host Ashland on Tuesday. Temple Christian moves to 6-1 on the season and will face Loudonville on Saturday at home.
Level of competition: Temple Christian, whose high school numbers roughly 45 total students, has now beaten an OHSAA opponent in every soccer division this year. They have beaten Div. I Mansfield Senior, (9-4), Div. II Willard (9-5) and Div. III Loudonville (4-1). The team’s varied schedule is designed to prime them for a single trophy in October.
A non-OHSAA school, Temple Christian competes as part of the Ohio Christian High School Athletic Association (OCSAA). The OCSAA is largely comprised of small private schools similar to the Crusaders. The team that projects to challenge Temple is 2013 state champion Hearts for Jesus. The two teams will face off on October 13 in the regular season and then possibly see a rematch of last year’s state championship on October 25 in tournament play.
A Week from Hades: The Tygers played their first of five games in eight days on Monday. The Tygers will play Ashland on Tuesday, West Holmes on Thursday, Upper Sandusky on Saturday and Wooster on Tuesday, September 23.
“We’re looking to improve our over all team defense, we’ve got to shut down those fast breaks,” said DeBolt. The squad will get some timely help in the return of Will Wilcox on Thursday. Wilcox is a transfer student from Mansfield Christian and is waiting out eight games to play per OHSAA transfer rules.
Defense: As they put tonight’s game in the rearview mirror, Mansfield Senior’s squad will look to improve on containing and limiting their opponents scoring opportunities. DeBolt emphasized improvement on defense.
“There’s times when we moved the ball pretty well,” said Debolt. “It’s that team defense getting organized in the middle. We get lost in the middle. People make overlapping runs and we get lost.
“With that being said we do make some pretty good individual efforts from time to time. We just need to gel more. That in a defense is key.”
