[heading]Bruins beat Jays 1-0.[/heading] After the Bruins went into overtime against the Jefferson City Jays last night, senior Cooper Smith scored the only goal of the varsity game. Even through the close calls of Jeff City shots, the cold yet proud crowd let out a loud cheer as the senior night game came to a close with victories of both junior varsity and varsity games at 0-1.
Though senior Greg Kelly typically plays main goalie for the Varsity team, he received a hard hit to the knee early on tonight, Oct. 22, during the match. Freshman Wilson Fitzgerald toed goal line for the Bruins, filling Kelly’s place, and didn’t allow their opponents to score any goals.
“I’ve been ready for a while with the practice I’ve been doing,” Fitzgerald said, “so I didn’t really feel nervous about it. I just felt ready to play.”
Yet when three missed touches from defenders caused a goal-scoring opportunity, Fitzgerald had to take things into his own hands – namely, the ball itself.
“I don’t really think it was a miscommunication, it just happened that three people missed the ball,” Fitzgerald said. “I was just excited that I held on to it and that I didn’t let the game go away. It was a big moment for me and I am glad I made the save.”
Going into the second half, it looked as though Jeff City had a slight advantage on RBHS since they had more ball possession, but as the game closed out, the team found the drive to work harder, according to sophomore center-midfielder/defender Brett Bales.
“I think we came out slow and our defense was a bit sluggish,” Bales said, “but in the second half we had more intensity. We made their defense do the work instead of ours.”
However, Head Coach Alex Nichols said nothing really changed in the second half and that the team just kept working at it. With all of this in mind, the team still has improvements to make all around, Nichols said.
“We still need to work on everything,” Nichols said. “Our communication has improved, but we still need to get it better.”
On top of that, Bales said if the Bruins continue to improve their communication while keeping the smaller details in mind, they will be a hard team to beat.
“[Improvements are] just working on the simple things and just focusing on the details,” Bales said. “That’ll really improve us, along with just working together as a team more.”
By Justin Sutherland
The C team takes on the Jays at 6 p.m. tomorrow at home, and varsity plays in the Rock Bridge Shootout at 7 p.m. at Battle.