Nation Ford boys’ soccer outlasts Rock Hill, elements

Flippers might have been more useful than cleats Tuesday night at Nation Ford, but the No. 8-ranked Falcons traversed very wet elements to beat Rock Hill 2-1 in boys’ soccer.

In conditions more akin to the wet season in southeast Asia and following a 44-minute lightning delay, Nation Ford (9-2-1, 5-1 Region 3-4A) got its winner with about 14 minutes left courtesy of Trysten Cullon. He controlled a half-cleared ball in the box and deposited a nice finish in the top right corner.

“Rock Hill played their hearts out tonight and the rain is always a great equalizer,” said Nation Ford coach Jon Jarrett. “Our boys were opportunistic. We got the one, but we like to make it interesting. Lot of one-goal wins for our team.”

The loss was another bitter mouthful for Rock Hill coach Cesar Robles and the Bearcats, as the former Northwestern girls’ soccer coach tries to foster a culture of winning boys soccer in his first year with the Bearcats (3-8, 2-3).

“One of the things that we talked about to be successful was we definitely had to match their work rate, the intangibles, and I think for the most part we did that,” said Robles. “I was extremely proud of the effort of our team.”

The rain, which started about five minutes into the game and only grew stronger over the next two hours, made Nation Ford’s quick artificial playing surface even faster. Stringing passes together was difficult, and a few misplaced Nation Ford passes led directly to Bearcats scoring chances.

Zhenya Deller intercepted one such wayward pass, only to scrape his low shot wide. Rock Hill’s Hudson Gray then nearly scored with his noggin after a deep corner kick was headed back across the penalty area by Edwin Garces. Gray’s header floated wide. And another errant distribution out of the Falcons’ backline left Harley Petke with a rolling ball about 25 yards from the net, but the smashed over.

The teams went into halftime tied at zero, but Owen Spencer broke the deadlock five minutes into the second half. Hank Tuipulotu catapulted a throw-in deep into the Rock Hill penalty area and after the ball was driven into a mass of players, Spencer was on hand to poke it home for the Falcons.

“Both of their goals came off set pieces,” said Robles. “They’re tall, they’re big and we had to do a good job of defending those and unfortunately that’s what came back and got us at the end.”

Rock Hill only had to wait about 10 minutes for the equalizer. Good work from sophomore midfielder George Mendez saw the ball out wide to Drake Mullaney and he drove a low pass into the box that was dispatched past the keeper from close range by Petke to make it 1-1.

Nation Ford had two more clear chances through Ben Tuipulotu and Caleb Bruckner before lightning flashed and sent the teams scurrying to dry locker rooms. Out of the lengthy delay it was the hosts who grabbed the win with a goal from Cullon.

“Our subs got both of our goals tonight, which was nice,” said Jarrett, also in his first season at Nation Ford.

He already has the Falcons to nine wins, two more than they got all of last season. Meanwhile, Robles and the Bearcats’ rebuilding project motors on, even after what the coach called “the best performance of the season.”

“We’ve had good performances,” said Robles, as his players dived into Chick-fil-A sandwiches in the locker room, “but it seems like at the end there is always that ‘but’ that we talk about. We have to have that complete performance and eliminate that ‘but’ at the end, and be rewarded for the effort they put in.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 9:51 PM with the headline "Nation Ford boys’ soccer outlasts Rock Hill, elements."