MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown boys’ soccer team is off to a blazing start in its 2023 campaign. Head coach Sam Snyder’s Mohigans defeated Bridgeport 2-0 on Thursday evening at Pony Lewis Field to earn their fourth win in four matches to begin the season.
Junior midfielder Aiden Stire opened the scoring in the first half on a penalty kick that was earned by MHS striker Alex Gonzalez. The junior attacker rounded a defender and was taken down before he was able to get a shot away on goal.
Stire stepped up to the spot and smashed a bullet right down the middle into the net of the BHS goalkeeper Andrew Dumas.
The second goal for the hosts was added by junior winger Riley Brabson who ran onto the end of a threaded pass from the midfield and then made a move on Dumas to free himself for a shot on the empty net with less than a minute remaining until halftime.
MHS scored its 10th goal of the season already and has only allowed one in the four games, which came to Buckhannon-Upshur in the season opener.
“We’ve done a great job of making it very hard on our opponents to score goals,” Snyder said after the game. “Limiting passes in the final third has been a big focus for us as well and we’ve accomplished that for the most part so far in the early stages of the season.”
Although the Mohigans netted two goals in the opening half, they could’ve scored a few more with the amount of chances they created on the goal of the Indians. Brabson constantly found space on the left wing and had the option to either cut inside with the ball or run wide to try and send the ball into a threatening area.
“We are always going to create chances, it’s just about how efficient we are night by night,” Snyder said. “We want to create chances through our midfield and as we grow and clean things up and create more possession. We want to be multi-faceted and make sure our offense can attack in different ways. We have the players that can go solo against a defender or we can work as a team and get a good chance from the build-up.”
The second half saw the pace of the game slow after the first ten minutes. BHS struggled to gain possession in the attacking third and needed to find a way to cut into the 2-0 deficit with about 15 minutes to play.
The MHS lead was almost three after senior winger Joel Beeson clanged a shot off the crossbar from close range.
The final 10 minutes saw some better attacking from the visitors but the hosts were equal to the task defensively, closing the game out with a solid effort.
MHS senior goalkeeper Tyler Crites earned his third clean sheet in a row out of four games.
The Mohigans will next travel to St. Clairsville (Oh.) next week on Thursday, Aug. 31.
