Eagles fall to Sycamore

Yesterday, The Eagles fell at Sycamore 4-1.   The boys battled hard and created 24 chances in the game, but failed to put the ball in the net enough.  In the first 3 minutes of the game, the Eagles had two great chances to sieze the upper hand with a two breakaways, both of which were stopped.  The Aves capitalized on poor clearance to go up 1-0 ten minutes in.  A couple of minutes of later and walnut was called for a handling in their won box.  After the Aves, knocked home the spot kick, the Eagles began the climb out of an early 2-0 deficit.   With a change in formation and tactics, the Eagles took control of the rest of the first half.  Captain Adam Brown would earn a pk, and then convert it to make the score 2-1.  The Eagles pressed on with foreign exchange student Jo Fridstrom breaking free with about 10 minutes left in the half.  Jo's attempt to beat the keeper was pushed wide and his follow up shot was cleared off the line.   The Eagles went into half down 2-1, but with lots of momentum.   After half, the Eagles kept on with their very attacking tactics as they were chasing the game.  For the next 25 minutes the game was wide open with both teams having great opportunities to score.  Brown would have 3 great efforts dug out by the Sycamore keeper, who played an exceptional game.  With the Eagles throwing several numbers forward, Senior captains Harrison Hildebrandt (pictured above) and Sebastian Ganz did a great job in keeping the Walnut fort secure.  Both Harry and Sebass made several key tackles as well header clearances to keep the game tight.  On a side note, Harrison Hildebrandt was chosen as ECC player of the week! With the game so back and forth, you could get a sense that if Walnut could score they could go on to win it.  Unfortunately, Sycamore grabbed a 3 goal with about 15 minutes left, when a they sent in a driven cross that was deflected by a sycamore player into the net.   The cat was out of the bag, and Walnut was now really chasing the game.  A couple of minutes later after another great chance by Brown was denied, a poor clearance resulted into the final goal.  The boys battled very hard in the game.  The had great preparation for the game and were very focused.  Giving up the early goals cost them as we were forced to make it an open attacking game.   The stats were just about even except in the goals category.   The Eagles will need to pick themselves up as they are at Loveland on Wednesday at 7pm.  Loveland is the favorite in the conference and it has huge ECC title implications on the line.   On Saturday, the JV Eagles improved to 10-0-1 with a 4-2 comeback win.  With the Eagles trailing 4-2 at half time, Brandon Pitz's free kick up and over the wall would start the charge.  The whole team played very well, especially new comer foreign exchange student Maurrico, who created several chances all game and had an assist.  Sam Warren, Luke Brownfield, and Robby Perry locked the down the defense in the second half.   This marked the first win for the JV teams at Sycamore under coach Rothwell's term at Walnut.