NEW PALESTINE —In the quarterfinal round of the New Palestine Boys Soccer Sectional, Mt. Vernon knocked off an opponent it played during the regular season, Richmond.
On Wednesday night at New Palestine High School, they tried to do it again.
The big difference was the Marauders had beaten Richmond in August.
Wednesday’s opponent, East Central, won the match when they faced off in mid-September and came into the sectional semifinal contest on a seven-game winning streak, and had given up just six goals all season.
Mt. Vernon had hopes of turning that around, but East Central had different plans.
The Marauders fell 3-0 to the Trojans.
East Central (16-1-1) will play New Palestine (9-8) in Saturday’s 2 p.m. championship.
“They’ve won it the last three years so they’re always going to be the favorite until somebody knocks them off. You’ve got to just prepare for it,” Mt. Vernon head coach Matt Mayhew said of Wednesday’s match against East Central. “We thought we had a chance, and thought we could do similar things to what we did the night before, but we just couldn’t get it done (Wednesday). We got mentally taken out of it on a few plays and that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
Mt. Vernon, who had been playing some of its best soccer of the season coming into the night, had found success over the past month by slowing down the game, controlling the tempo, and playing their style of soccer.
East Central made it difficult for the Marauders to do any of those things.
A fast and relentless attack allowed the Trojans to control the game from the start.
“It’s tough, and we kind of bought into their style for a while. We started playing a lot of long balls and that’s not what’s got us through these last couple games,” Mayhew said. “You’ve got to trust that the guys on the field can analyze things and see that, but it just wasn’t our night tonight. Kudos to East Central, they’re a great team.”
It took just over two minutes for East Central to break the 0-0 tie. On a free kick from just outside of the box, Nathaniel McFee fired a strike past Mt. Vernon goalkeeper Will Keppler.
A minute later, the Marauders had their chance to respond on a free kick of their own.
East Central goalkeeper CJ Inderhees dove to his left to stop the shot from Mt. Vernon’s Charlie Cole.
The Marauders best chance of the night came with just 10 minutes left in the half. A run on net by Nick Heitman was turned away in the box by a sliding East Central defender.
East Central added to their lead before the half with Brady Hartman beating Keppler as he was running out to play the ball.
And early in the second half, the Trojans increased the lead to 3-0 on a penalty kick.
A handball in the box by Mt. Vernon set up the try, and East Central’s Brennan Lewis went right with the shot, while Keppler guessed left.
The Trojans attempted 12 shots and sent nine shots on net, but the Marauder defense allowed just one goal outside of the penalty kick and free kick.
“We’ve relied on our defense all year. We can score, but it takes a while for that to get going. We’ve asked a lot out of Will, and all those guys on the back line to just hold the line until our attack gets going,” Mayhew said. “Unfortunately we couldn’t get it going, and you have to get goals to take pressure off of your defense. That’s a credit to them for taking us out of our attack.”
The Marauders were limited offensively to just five shots and only two shots on goal.
“We were under pressure, and they’re just fast everywhere. Playing our style and the simple ball outside just wasn’t there,” Mayhew said. “We needed to change some things, and some things just didn’t work.”
Mt. Vernon finished the year 11-6 and with a junior-heavy roster, will return all but two players next season.
“We’ll be back. We talked about it in the huddle,” Mayhew said. “We feel bad for our two seniors [Heitman and Xander Sokol], but we’ve got everybody else coming back. It’s sad to see the seniors go, but it’s a good thing knowing we’ll have everyone else back out there.”
