Big Red Defeats Brooke In OVAC Play-In Contest
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WELLSBURG -- For Big Red, just getting in the OVAC tournament was simply not enough on its own. They wanted to take advantage of the chance to play in the conference tourney and get a win.
Greg Bowers' club did just that on Monday, topping Brooke 3-1 in an OVAC Class 5A quarterfinal on the grass field at Brooke High School.
"That's what we tried to explain to the kids -- this is a great midseason tournament," Bowers, the Big Red coach, said. "Not many teams have a league that has a midseason tournament, so to play for something that means something at this point in the season is a great opportunity, and I told them to take advantage of it."
Take advantage of it they did, as Big Red, the No. 5 seed in the tournament, struck first, answered back after the No. 4 seed Bruins tied it and fended off the pressure from the Bruins down the stretch in the second half.
"We've done that the last couple games where we've got a lead and then gave up a goal that we shouldn't have," Bowers said. "Credit to the kids for battling back and getting the two-goal lead.
"Our defense did a great job, my hat's off to them. That's two freshmen and a sophomore back there. They did a good job locking things down and J.P. (Walsh) made some big saves when he needed to."
Walsh made six saves in net, including a couple dandies in the second half.
After a lightning delay 1:11 into the action delayed things for about 40 minutes, Steubenville (4-4-3) senior Caleb Noble opened the scoring in the third minute off an assist from Anthony Shevlin for a 1-0 lead.
Less than a minute later, Theo Loot put a header off the cross bar. Then, after the Big Red near miss, Brooke's Dylan Black fired a long shot up and over Walsh to even the score in the seventh minute.
In the 19th minute, Anthony Vendetti got his foot on a loose ball in close and gave Big Red back the lead, then, in the 23rd minute, Matt Loot fired a free kick into the net from distance to make it a 3-1 Steubenville lead at the break.
"We made a couple young mistakes," Brooke coach Joe Pepe said. "We start two seniors, three juniors and the rest are all sophomores. So, we're going to make some mistakes. If we could have got one in during the second half, it would have been a whole different game, but that's the way things go.
"Big Red has a good team, they out-hustled us and beat us to the ball in the first half. That was the difference."
The Bruins (6-5-1) had several good looks in the second half, perhaps the best coming with about 28 minutes remaining when a Bruin close to the goal put a header just over the bar off a corner kick.
With about 10 minutes remaining, Walsh stopped a free kick, stopped another long range shot with five minutes to go and made another nice save in the final minute.
"The whole second half, we played like we've been playing," Pepe said. "I'm very proud of these kids. It hurts, but the sun is going to come up tomorrow. These kids played their hearts out in the second half, and if we play like that the remainder of the season, we're going to make a little bit of the statement with this young team.
"I wish Greg and his crew luck."
UP NEXT
Big Red: Advances in the OVAC tournament to meet No. 2 seed Wheeling Park on Wednesday. The Patriots edged Steubenville, 2-1, last week.
Brooke: Is scheduled to take on Oak Glen next Tuesday.