Boys soccer scores late goal to surge ahead of Sandusky, 2-1

FREMONT – Sometimes adversity brings out the best in a team.

Such was the case for the Ross boys soccer team this week.

The Little Giants battled through back-to-back matches against the eventual TRAC co-champions, St. Francis and St. John’s, playing their best soccer of the season, despite losing both games.

Saturday morning, Ross played host to rival Sandusky, where the Little Giants battled early fatigue and late frustrations as they searched high and low for the go-ahead goal.

Finally, with three minutes to play in a match it had largely taken control of, Ross broke through and took a 2-1 victory.

“Battling through adversity, battling through three physical games – Sandusky was just as physical as St. Francis and St. John’s – we fought and fought and fought,” coach Alex Coressel said. “I think overcoming the mental aspect today was huge – not having that trap game, so to speak.”

The toll of its league games this week showed early as Ross was flat and slow to the ball in the first 15 minutes of the match. As a result, Sandusky scored the game’s first goal when a shot rang off the goalpost and the Blue Streaks fired the rebound into the goal for a 1-0 lead where the game remained until halftime.

“The first half we were not making good decisions, plain and simple,” Coressel said. “We were tired, mentally tired, physically tired, a little bit of everything. We were playing balls over the top that we weren’t getting to, 10 to 15 yards ahead, we were dribbling through traffic when we didn’t need to.”

Ross began to assert itself in the second half but it took a Blue Streak miscue to the get the Little Giants on the board in the game’s 54th minute.

Sam Durbin fired a shot that rang off the goal post. The ball then bounced off the Sandusky goalkeeper and over the goal line to tie the game.

From there, the Little Giants dominated most of the half, but as the shots piled up, 26 by the end of the match, the score remained the game.

Senior defender Spencer Batey said the Little Giants had to battle their own emotions just as much as they had to battle the Blue Streaks.

“We’re all teenagers, our moods go up and down so trying to rally together a team, from a coach’s perspective, from a captain’s perspective or from a senior’s perspective, it’s extremely difficult,” Batey said. “But you have to stay on them and let your teammates know to keep pushing forward and you can’t give up. We had a few players, you could see it on their faces, they were starting to go down, but you got to get on them and keep pushing them.”

While Ross controlled the ball for the majority of the play, Sandusky still had its opportunities and it fell to the Little Giant defenders and keeper Mikey Contreras to keep the Blue Streaks from re-taking the lead.

“It is nerve-wracking because you don’t know, anything can happen,” said Contreras who finished with five saves. “We have a full 80 minutes and you never know what can happen. It kind of upsets me we weren’t able to score until the very end, but I’m still happy we were able to get it.

“To win a crucial game at the end, like this, it feels great.”

Finally, with 2:58 remaining in the game, Durbin battled through a Blue Streak defender and fired a shot past the Blue Streaks goalkeeper to take the lead.

“Somebody made a sick, little tackle, just played me through and the rest was easy,” Durbin said. “It’s tough, for sure, when you look up and, myself included, you’ve missed almost every shot you take. But you’re just looking for one at the end.”

While the Little Giants (8-7) celebrated their Senior Day, they have one more home match, Monday against Marion Harding, in a game rescheduled from earlier in the month. After that, Ross travels to Ashland on Wednesday for its district tournament opener.

While happy with the win, Batey said the Little Giants need to play like they did against St. John’s if they want their season to continue beyond Wednesday.

“Today we started off a little slow and we rallied and were as good as we needed to be, but St. John’s was right where we need to be for the tournament game,” Batey said. “We’re getting there, it’ll be interesting to see Wednesday what we’re able to come up with.”