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STAR CORRESPONDENT

Trailing by three goals late in the second half the Elizabethton Cyclones boys soccer team found a wellspring of energy and confidence and began a rally that in the closing seconds saw the tying goal disqualified by the head official.

The Cyclones fell 3-2 to Chuckey-Doak in conference play but head coach Doug Schultz found a silver lining saying, “We have a lot of talent on this team and I have to find a way to get the most out of them.”

EHS had two early chances to take a lead but found unlucky situations that prevented them from that task. The first one saw a great crossing pass to the foot of sophomore Drake Teague who fired a low shot at Black Knights goalkeeper Gannon Cogdell who made a fine stop but lost the rebound.

Unfortunately, no one from EHS was in position to take advantage and C-D was able to clear the ball out. The second opportunity came on a shot from Teague that struck the right upright of the goal frame.

Meanwhile the Knights scored two goals that EHS goalkeeper Tucker Taylor usually handles with ease but on these occasions gave up a pair of bad goals. The first coming from a shot by Jesus Rojas that Taylor caught on the fly but the ball squirmed through his gloved hands into the net.

The second came on a shot from Marco Rojas in the 18th minute to stake C-D a two-nil advantage and that is how the first half ended.

“Their energy level at the beginning of the game I’ll take responsibility for that,” Schultz said. “They weren’t ready to play. They were a lot more competitive in the second half. We started poorly and that’s something we have to fix.”

In the 42nd minute, the Knights got their third goal of the match on a header from Sean Humbert who cashed in on a nice corner kick feed from Logan Balding. That seemed to spark the Cyclones into attack mode and they had several long dribble dives through the C-D defense.

Sophomore Reece Vernon tallied a goal in the 59th minute when the Knights defense failed to clear the ball and Vernon was able to nudge a shot past Cogdell to give EHS a spark. In the 60th minute Teague took possession in the EHS end of the field and drove past several C-D defenders and fired a shot into the Knights net to make it a 3-2 contest.

With the clock winding down the final 30 seconds of the match Teague fired a shot that Cogdell blocked but did not handle the rebound and Riley Vernon seemed to score the equalizer but the head official ruled that Cogdell had possession of the ball even while sprawled out on the turf.

Citizens Bank Stadium

Chuckey-Doak 3-2

Chuckey-Doak 2 1 – 3

Elizabethton 0 2 – 2

Scoring Summary

First Half

C-D – J. Rojas (unassisted) 10:00

C-D – M. Rojas (unassisted) 18:00

Second Half

C-D – Humbert (assist Balding) 42:00

E – R. Vernon (unassisted) 59:00

E – Teague (unassisted) 60:00