Archive for Sunday, September 20, 2009

Steamboat Springs sophomore Lance Ostrom, right, races Battle Mountain's Yini Ruiz for a loose ball deep in the Sailors' zone Saturday. The teams played to a draw, 1-1.

Photo by Joel Reichenberger

Steamboat Springs sophomore Lance Ostrom, right, races Battle Mountain's Yini Ruiz for a loose ball deep in the Sailors' zone Saturday. The teams played to a draw, 1-1.

Sailors soccer tie Huskies, 1-1

White's late goal forces tie for Steamboat, Battle Mountain

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Steamboat Springs's Hanson Buchner tries to get around a Battle Mountain defender and get at the ball in the second half of Saturday's game in Steamboat Springs. Buchner and the Sailors finish with a tie, 1-1.

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A Steamboat player tries to bump the ball to a teammate Saturday as the Steamboat Springs High School soccer team played Battle Mountain to a 1-1 draw.

— One team was obviously disappointed and the other still excited from a late swing of fortune.

Still, neither the Steamboat Springs nor Battle Mountain soccer teams left Gardner Field on Saturday with even a hint of satisfaction.

Steamboat equalized the game with a goal from Andrew White with five minutes remaining, but neither the Sailors nor the Huskies could come up with a way to break the tie, and the game ended, 1-1.

"That doesn't feel good," White said. "Our goal coming in was to play Steamboat soccer, and we failed at that. Still, we worked hard and managed to come up with the draw."

White's goal came in the nick of time and bailed the Sailors out after a game of offensive struggles.

Steamboat coach Rob Bohlmann urged his team on from the sidelines, hollering "One more run! One more run!"

White finally obliged, receiving a crossing shot directly in front of the net, 10 yards out, from senior Connor Birch. He threw one quick move to get a pair of Battle Mountain defenders off balance, then blasted the ball around them, past the goalie and into the back corner of the goal.

"That was a very good goal," Battle Mountain coach David Cope said. "The cross was nice and low, and (White) had a nice first touch, then picked his corner and blew it past."

White said chances like that weren't there all day, but as the game wore on and Battle Mountain - fresh off a game Friday - wore down, he saw them come up more and more.

"It was there inconsistently, here and there," White said. "It built up over the half. We had some opportunities, and I knew eventually we'd score."

It was enough to make up for Steamboat's early-game lapse that gave Battle Mountain the high ground.

Huskies senior Ubaldo Trujillo rocketed a goal in from almost 30 yards out just five minutes into the action.

"Their defense was trying to get the ball out of their half, and I got the ball right on my foot," Trujillo said. "I kicked it, and they didn't think it was going to go in."

Steamboat spent the rest of the game trying to play catch-up. Christopher Holmquist bopped a shot off his head in the first half that snuck just high, then Brandon Marr was just wide after fighting through the Battle Mountain defense for a shot late in that period.

For much of the late first and early second halves, the battle was waged in the middle of the field, with few opportunities for either team.

Battle Mountain had the only good cracks at walking away a winner in the two, five-minute overtime periods.

Bohlmann said he could appreciate the bullets his team was able to dodge, but like nearly everyone else filing off the field after the game, he did so somberly.

"Our biggest thing, we didn't come out and play good soccer," he said. "From the opening whistle, we didn't have the proper mentality to find a rhythm to generate good opportunities.

"We had one brilliant moment, where Andrew took it down under great pressure and had a phenomenal fisnish. If you can find a moment in a game that's not going well, I guess that's all right."

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