RC Boys Drop Three

Wildcats’ Soccer Skid Now At Five

The Rockbridge County High School boys soccer team suffered three Valley District losses last week, falling at Broadway and Spotswood and coming up short at home against Harrisonburg.

The setbacks stretched the Wildcats’ losing streak to five games.

On Tuesday of last week, the Wildcats (2-7-0 overall, 1-7-0 district) lost 5-2 at Broadway (3-7-1, 2-6-1). Cooper Fox and Brennan Roeder each scored one goal for RC.

The next night, despite preventing Harrisonburg from scoring in the second half, the Wildcats fell 2-0 in Lexington.

The Wildcats found themselves trailing just under six minutes into the game when Hosea Tesfamoriam scored for the Blue Streaks (4-4-1, 4-3-1) from RC junior goalkeeper Jacob Wallace’s right side. Later in the half, Alfredo Rivero-Rodriguez gave Harrisonburg a 2-0 lead by kicking in a goal off a rebound of a missed shot. Gêne Kähler got off a shot late in the first half that was stopped by Harrisonburg goalkeeper Adolfo Rivera Rivas.

In the second half, the Blue Streaks got several scoring opportunities, but RC junior goalkeeper Patrick De Marcellus came up with big saves, and the Wildcats’ defenders helped stop the Blue Streaks from extending their lead.

For the game, De Marcellus made seven saves after replacing Wallace, who had three saves.

“I want to give a big shoutout to our keepers tonight,” said RC head coach Jeff Tomlin. They stepped up, and they really helped us tonight.”

Giving credit to the Blue Streaks, Tomlin said, “Harrisonburg’s a great team, and they’re very well coached.”

Tomlin added that Harrisonburg defender Miguel Osorto Osorto made it tough for the Wildcats to score by putting pressure on the Wildcats in scoring position. “Hats off to him,” said Tomlin. “He’s a very good defender.”

Tomlin was proud of his team for keeping the game close against a tough Harrisonburg team. “I knew, coming into this game, we were going to be very organized, and I knew we were gonna have to play a sound game,” said Tomlin. “I think that this game was honestly the best soccer we’ve played all season. We connected seven, eight passes in a row at times, and we possessed, we brought it back, we went forward when we could. [The Blue Streaks] were just very good defensively.”

Spotswood 2, RC 1

RC concluded the week with a 2-1 road loss to Spotswood.

The Trailblazers (5-4-1, 3-4-1), who had beaten the Wildcats by the same score on April 8 in Lexington, found themselves trailing in the rematch, as the Wildcats took a 1-0 lead with about 13 minutes left in the first half.

RC’s Jonathan Roy got a through ball to Juan Rodriguez, who took a shot that bounced off the Spotswood goalkeeper, but Wildcat Carlos Reynolds put in a goal off the rebound, with the assist going to Rodriguez.

Spotswood answered, scoring with about five minutes left in the first half to tie the game 1-1.

In the second half, both teams moved the ball well, but Spotswood’s Amaday Mozheyko scored the game winner with about nine minutes left. The Wildcats had a couple of chances to tie the game, including on a shot by Roy that went over the goal, but the Blazers held on for the win.

In goal, Eliot McDonald played the first half for the Wildcats and made one save, and De Marcellus played the second half and had three saves.

Reviewing his team’s performance, Tomlin said, “I was really pleased with the effort. Something I really appreciated from the team was, even after [Spotswood] scored the game winner, we kept playing hard.”

The Wildcats were scheduled to play host to William Monroe last night and will continue district action at Harrisonburg on Friday, starting with the junior varsity game at 5:30 p.m., with the varsity game scheduled to follow at 7. RC will play host to district rival East Rockingham on Tuesday, with the varsity game only at 7 p.m., following the 5:30 p.m. girls’ varsity game between the two schools.