PORT CLINTON – The Little Giant soccer team’s first road game of the season ended with a happy bus ride home.
Ross returned to Fremont after dominating the ball offensively and cruising to a 3-1 victory over Port Clinton.
“We played overall very well tonight,” coach Alex Coressel said. “We linked a lot of passes together, especially in the midfield, worked our way forward. We had, I’m going to assume, probably 50 shots tonight. We were down in their third of the field probably 60-65 percent of the game. We were firing ball after ball after ball, we were either rolling it into the keeper, firing it right into the keeper or blasting it about 100 miles over the net. We won 3-1 but it could have been a whole lot worse if we shot it better.”
Brayden Ebinger
Mason DeWalt
Isaac Minor, Ayden Carter and Chris Navarro each scored for the Little Giants.
“Everybody offensively played their role tonight and played very well,” Coressel said.
The defense benefitted from the return of senior defender Mason DeWalt, making his season debut after sitting out the first two games due to receiving a red card in Ross’ district tournament loss last season.
While DeWalt’s play provided a veteran presence to the back-end, Coressel said sophomore Brayden Ebinger stole the show, playing in place of the injured Micah Olvera.
“Brayden’s played very few minutes here and there, kind of in mop-up duty, and played probably 70 minutes and was just phenomenal all night,” Coressel said. “He trapped the ball really well, played the ball really well and had, by far, his best game all-around and really put himself in position to earn a lot more minutes going forward into the season.”
Logan Baacke
Behind the defense, freshman goalkeeper Logan Baacke picked up the win in his first varsity start. While he wasn’t overly busy, when he got the chance he was active and impressive.
“There was a few balls that rolled through, he read them very well, played well with his feet,” Coressel said. “The only goal they scored was on a PK and he even read it right, it just happened to bounce over him, barely missed it. He took care of anything that even came in and came close to being danger, which wasn’t too close tonight, but he did a real nice job back there.”
Ross (2-1 overall) travels to Woodmore Saturday at 11 a.m.
Lady Giants fall to Redskins
The ride home was a little more somber for the Lady Giants. Port Clinton shut out Ross, 2-0.
The Redskins scored the game’s first goal with just two seconds remaining in the first half and added another score on a penalty kick in the second half.
Ross managed four shots on goal, two by Ashtyn Schneider and one each from Ellie Bloom and Mia Ramirez.
“(We) definitely need to work on creating more space on the field and settling the ball and knowing when to get rid of it,” co-coach Emma Schratt said. “Talking is always a big thing and some of the girls need to not be scared of the other team because thy always back down off a tackle.”
Ross (1-2) visits Toledo Start Monday for a 5 p.m. match.