XENIA — Beavercreek applied plenty of offensive pressure against the Troy Trojans’ defense in a Division I sectional tournament final, Oct. 22 at Doug Adams Stadium.
That pressure led to Troy mistakes.
Those mistakes led to Beavercreek scores, in a 6-1 Division I sectional final win.
“I just told my kids, we’ve taken what we’ve been working on in practice, and it’s starting to transition out onto the field,” Beavercreek coach John Guiliano said. “It makes a big difference. There was no dropoff today when we subbed in, and we played a solid overall team match tonight.”
Beavers senior midfielder Ryan Wightman drove the first Beavercreek goal into the net roughly three minutes into the contest, off an assist by Hunter Jackson.
Jackson then scored his own goal off a rebounded shot try by Beavercreek teammate Pete Schneider in the 23rd minute.
Schneider then kept the assist-one-goal; score-another pattern going by scoring the next goal in the 33rd minute to put Beavercreek (14-3-1) out in front 3-0 at the break.
The Beavers’ Ernst Vaughn shot a direct kick from about 20 yards out over the Troy defensive wall and into the right side of the Trojan goal roughly five minutes into the second half for a 4-0 lead, but Troy responded with a close-range chip-in goal by Trojans co-captain Connor Hubbell in the 45th minute.
If anything, the Troy goal just seemed to get Beavercreek to intensify its offensive pressure just a little bit more the rest of the way.
Phillip Wynn took a pass from Wightman for a Beavercreek score with 33 minutes left in the match for a 5-1 Beavers lead.
Wightman then knocked the final Beavers goal. He drove deep into the left side of the Troy zone, then fired a quick rolling shot into the right corner of the goal for the 6-1 margin.
“I’m disappointed in the mental mistakes that we made tonight. We made too many mistakes tonight, and they capitalized on all of them,” said Troy coach Richard Phillips. “We were looking forward to this match, but you can’t make mistakes against a team like Beavercreek.”
Troy closes out a strong season with a 16-3-0 overall record, finishing second in the Greater Western Ohio Conference’s American North division with a 9-1-0 divisional mark.
Beavercreek will now likely face Anderson High, in a 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25 district matchup at a neutral site yet to be determined. Anderson was playing No. 29-seeded Morrow Little Miami, Monday night in Blue Ash.
“Anderson’s probably next for us. We’ll be ready to play,” Guiliano said.
