By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
The Orange County Hornets were able to find the back of the net twice in the first half and that was enough. The Flying Flucos under Coach Earl Gibson actually dominated play most of the game, but soccer is a game where controlling the ball does not always result in goals. The Flucos fired off a number of shots that were near misses, but could not get a shot past the Hornets’ goal keeper. Ultimately they lost the game 0-2.
The first goal for Orange came very early in the game after only three minutes of play. A nice pass to an open attacker led to a shot that sophomore goalie Ryan Holman had no chance of stopping. The Flucos rallied and swarmed around the Hornets’ goal but were unable to score an equalizer. Fluco junior forward Brandon Lucas launched an excellent corner kick to the front of the goal, but the Orange County goalie leaped up to punch it away. A short time later, the Flucos were awarded a free kick from 45 yards out and a hard shot went just too high. Then, junior forward Jason Davis just missed and Lucas was just wide left.
Junior center back Elijah Bullock made one of his many long throw-ins and a header shot sailed just over the cross bar. Late in the period, Orange was awarded a corner kick and the Hornets converted with a header for their second goal and the final score of the game. In the last five minutes of the first half, the Flucos had chances on two long throw-ins by Bullock, but could not convert.
At the start of the second half, the Flucos dominated play. Davis made a nice run up the middle of the field in the first minute, but was turned away. In the fourth minute of play, junior forward Ford DeVault fired a hard shot that was just wide left. Then senior midfielder Ethan Allbaugh got off a long hard shot that just sailed over the cross bar. In the 25thminute Holman made a nice save to keep the score from going to 0-3 as he tipped a hard high shot up and over the cross bar. With 20 minutes left, Bullock made another strong throw-in, but the header shot that resulted was stopped on a good save by the Hornets’ goalie.
As time was getting short, the Flucos continued to control most of the action. With 11 minutes remaining senior midfielder Kamden Shephard had a hard shot on goal foiled, and with only five minutes left, Allbaugh was just too high. With three minutes left Lucas was just off the mark.
After the game, Coach Jason Davis noted that he felt his squad had played well in the second half, but that it is obviously the case that you can’t win if you don’t score. He noted that he thought defenseman Finn McLaughlin had played a good game, as did DeVault and Shephard. The Flucos were disappointed by this loss in light of the fact that they topped Orange earlier in the season, at Orange. The Flucos do remain over .500 despite this loss.
On May 2 the Flucos suffered a hard 0-8 loss at Charlottesville, and May 6 they traveled to Powhatan. On May 9 they host Albemarle and May 13 they will be at Western Albemarle. The final regular season contest will be at home against Louisa County May 16.
