Greenwood breaks through for district title

feature-4

By Nolan Epstein (For OzarksSportsZone.com)

Coming into Thursday, the Greenwood Blue Jays (15-5) knew nothing else besides finishing in second place in district play – playing the role of runners-up every year in the tournament since 2008.

As hard as that is to imagine, it was almost equally as hard to believe that they finally exorcised their postseason demons on Thursday night by holding off a late-charging College Heights Christian (13-13) team by a 3-2 final in the Class 1, District 6 championship.

For Greenwood fans, it was only a matter of time. For Greenwood seniors, it was the perfect time.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME

“It’s extremely important to us,” Blue Jays senior Noah Shuler said of finally collecting an elusive district title. “Since our freshman year, we’ve lost every single year in the district final. For us to finally win it, it means a lot.”

The long-awaited win came against a Cougars club that Greenwood had beaten two times prior in the 2016 season – including a come-from-behind effort on Sept. 15 that saw the Blue Jays tie the score in the final seconds in regulation and net the game-winner in overtime.

On Thursday, the script was almost completely flipped as Greenwood enjoyed a 3-0 halftime lead, only to wind up hanging on by a thread.

“It was almost just like reverse,” Greenwood head coach Chris Shull said of Thursday’s game compared to his team’s Sept. 15 victory.

Greenwood received goals from junior Don Hon and Shuler in the match’s sixth and 30th minute, respectively, to put the Jays up by two and place momentum firmly on their side.

But they were far from satisfied.

“2-0 is the most dangerous score,” said Shuler. “We were feeling good, but it’s so easy for them to come back and we just knew that we had to push more.”

With 3:05 to play until halftime, Greenwood got what it was looking for – another goal, this time from another senior in Julius Walker to expand the lead to 3-0. Still, Walker and his team refused to take the lead for granted.

“At that point, we were thinking that we know that [College Heights Christian] is a dangerous team,” Walker said. “Whenever we went up 3-0, we really wanted to hold the lead, but we also wanted more goals and wanted more insurance. We’re a team that never wants to stop attacking.”

CHC responded with authority right out of halftime as senior Dylan Zurrabi put the Cougars on the board 32 seconds into the second half. 21 minutes later, a netter by Jonathan Johnson shrunk the Greenwood lead to one and started to stir up memories of past district tournament heartbreaks.

But the Blue Jays wouldn’t have any of it – buckling down and hanging on for dear life as the final 18-plus minutes were ticking off the scoreboard clock.

“The whole time, I’m looking at the clock saying, “Go faster, go faster,’” Walker said, laughing. “Each second got longer, longer and long, but it was a great experience when the clock hit zero.”

College Heights had several opportunities to tie the match late, including a shot by Zurrabi that sailed just left of the goal with 1:30 to go.

“We had the momentum at that time,” CHC head coach Daniel Lewis said. “You could tell that the momentum had changed and the kids just came out and gave 100 percent. If they would have played with that fire in the first half, it might have been a little bit of a different outcome.”

After the game, Coach Shull was thankful that his team possessed the fire in the first half of play that the Cougars lacked – ultimately spelling the difference and ending a run of eight consecutive second-place finishes in the district tourney.

“It was anyone’s game, especially in the second half,” added Shull. “[College Heights Christian] about pulled it off. They’re well coached. With that being said, our hard work in the first half ended up winning this title.”

Greenwood moves on to play the District 5 champion in the quarterfinal round on Oct. 29.

Related Posts

Loading...