By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
It was a closely contested game, played on the Flucos home field, on May 6. Unfortunately, although Coach Earl Gibson’s squad controlled the final minutes, they were unable to convert a tying goal. As a result, the Orange County Hornets came away with a 3-2 victory.
The Flucos struck first, early in the game, when sophomore midfielder William Davis fed sophomore forward Addison Patchett a nice looping pass and Patchett fired a shot past the Hornets’ goalie for a 1-0 Fluco lead. The goal came after only seven and a half minutes of play in a 40 minute game.
Unfortunately, the Fluco lead was extraordinarily short-lived. It took the Hornets a mere 37 seconds to respond with their first goal of the evening. After another nine minutes of play, the Hornets took a 2-1 lead on a goal on nice lob pass that Fluco senior goalie Ryan Holman had no chance to stop.
Orange County’s third goal, which would be the winning goal came with 7:48 left in the first half, when a long powerful kick found the corner of the net. Holman was injured trying to stop the shot and Coach Gibson had to move junior forward Zach Fontenot into goal. This was unfortunate, as Fontenot had been playing well at the forward position. Late in the half, the Flucos were controlling the action and Patchett and junior Aaron Evans both had opportunities on breakaways that were thwarted by the Hornets’ defense. As a result, the Hornets led 3-1 at the half.
In the middle of the second half, Patchett make a strong run on the Hornets goal and a defender making a desperate attempt to stop Patchett, miss hit the ball and kicked it past his own goalie for what is known as an “own goal.” This is an unusual, but not unheard off occurrence, even at the upper levels of soccer you occasionally see an own goal.
In the final ten minutes of the game, the Flucos kept the ball almost entirely in the Orange County end of the field, However, they just could not find the goal they needed. With six minutes remaining Evans made an excellent dribbling move and split two defenders, but his shot was just wide of the left post. With 4:45 remaining a Fluco header was just stopped and with 3:40 left on the clock sophomore Samson Blakely hit a hard shot that was just too high. After the game, Coach Gibson praised the play of Blakely and of sophomore forward Killian Donnelly. He also noted that his squad is very young. His starting line-up included four juniors and four sophomores and only three seniors.
This loss drops the Fluco boys to 0-3 for the year. On May 10, they hosted Louisa County, and on May 13, they will host Albemarle high. On May 20 they will travel to Monticello high.
