At halftime of Tuesday’s match against McMinn Central, East Ridge soccer coach Jeremy McIntyre had one main point he wanted to stress with his players.
“Shoot, shoot and keep on shooting,” he said. “I thought we had a lot of opportunities in the first half, but we didn’t take them.”
The Pioneers must have been listening.
Francisco Solar netted the first of his two goals early in the second period, and scoring chances were plentiful in the next 35 minutes as East Ridge earned its first win of the season, 3-0 over the Chargers.
“They definitely started pressing harder and going after the ball more,” McIntyre said. “We played really well the second half. I think we dominated. They did everything I wanted them to do.”
In a battle between two young teams, McMinn Central controlled much of the play to open the match, but keeper Chase Steele and the Pioneers’ defense kept the Chargers out of the net. Their offensive counterparts had taken over by the midway point of the first half, although they went to the break without having connected on any of their scoring opportunities.
“I thought the first half went fairly well,” said Chargers coach Bill McConkey, whose team was without two starters who sat out after receiving red cards last week. “We were staying in shape and in position, but then we kind of lost it.”
About five minutes into the second half, Solar broke through on a ball from Tyler Boyd that he sent over the head of McMinn Central keeper Slade Brown. The Pioneers followed that with several more dangerous chances in the next 10 minutes before a lull helped the Chargers start to pressure Steele again.
“I was worried about us getting the goal and then relaxing,” McIntyre said. “I think we were starting to do that, but we caught ourselves. We were able to regain our focus and finish the game.”
Solar’s second goal came around the 55th minute on a combination with Steve Troglen and Amel Sahbaz, and Troglen twice broke free for near misses during the next five minutes. Sahbaz finished the scoring with about six minutes remaining when he took a pass from Solar, beat the McMinn Central defense and sent the ball past Brown.
After playing to a 2-2 tie last Thursday in a district game against perennial power Chattanooga Christian, the Pioneers (1-0-2) have reason to believe Tuesday’s victory could be the first of many.
“We tied Central in our first game, and that kind of woke us up,” McIntyre said. “I think maybe we thought we were there, and we weren’t quite. The CCS game got us fired up, and now we’re excited about the season.”
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