Gallery by Greg Barnett
Gardner – A week ago the Shady offense was scorching, relishing a 5-2 win over PikeView to cap the regular season.
Wednesday is was the Panthers who had the final say.
Jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first half, PikeView made that score stand, claiming the sectional championship and ending Shady’s season at PVHS.
It was only the second time this season the Tigers had been blanked.
“We just rallied to the ball,” PikeView head coach Jimmy Patton said. “Last week, they were better than us and they’re a really good team but we were flat. The turf kind of bothered us a little bit I think but they beat us and outplayed us. This weekend we talked with our defensive midfielders about holding a space instead of falling back and rallying to the ball. That was the main thing – rallying to the ball. If you noticed we just continued to have numbers behind the ball.”
Sophomore Matt Murphy opened the scoring with a goal in the 22nd minute, applying the pressure early. It was multiplied when senior Jonathan Mitchell blasted another shot inside the box in the 29th minute to make it 2-0.
“They were very aggressive from the start,” Shady head coach Josiah Smith said. “I think the early goal did change the dynamics of the game. I think they were well organized and they wanted to win the ball. It resulted in them playing very aggressive soccer and they definitely got the advantage with that second goal and we had a big hole to fight out of.
The quick lead helped the Panthers play to their strengths, shifting the pressure.
“Sometimes when we get some pressure and the chips are down they start blasting it from 40 yards but they played small ball today and moved the ball up the field,” Patton said.
Shady tried to establish its electric offense through star Michael Vecellio, something the Panthers sold out to stop. He was never left along and often cornered when he had possession.
“When one of our defensive midfielders was on ball we said the other one’s got to find (Vecellio),” Patton said. “He’s the best in Southern West Virginia, I’ll tell you that. He moves the ball well and he’s just a constant threat. You see any defense shifts with him because he’s so good. That was the idea with him – we were going to have eyes on him at all times even with a guy in the back or making him with a midfielder. At the end I told one of our players just to hard mark him continuously.”
“He was fouled persistently throughout the game, particularly in the first half,” Smith said of Vecellio.
Despite the late deficit, the Tigers made PikeView keeper Drew Damewood work to preserve the lead. With Shady on the offensive and working around the box for most of the last 15 minutes, Damewood was tested numerous times at close range and answered to preserve the win.
“He is the best, Patton said. “I had complete confidence in him. They’ve had penalty kicks against him and the ball boys on the side would say ‘You seem awful calm for a penalty kick’ and I said ‘ He’ll stop it because he’s the best and stops everything.’ He’s kept us in so many games and we had such a young team this year. The first part of the year until we gelled in was Drew against the world sometimes and he kept us in games and earned us ties and wins.”
“It was just focus,” Damewood said. “Everybody’s cold and tired out. It’s just focus and keeping the intensity.”
Damewood, who was on the losing end a week ago concurred with Patton that the venue shift likely made a difference. Instead of the turf field the teams met on last week, they squared off on the grass field at PikeView.
“I think really it’s on our home field and we’re used to it,” Damewood said. “We call it the beach with all the sand. It’s our home and we know it better than they do. We had our fans and we had everybody and we were prepared. We saw what they had – we hadn’t played them in awhile – but we saw what they had and we executed.”
The Panthers, sitting one game away from the state tournament, will now await the Section 2 winner who will be crowned on Saturday.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
