Win, Lose or Draw - BHS Boys Soccer Team Determined to Improve
By Julie Perine on August 28, 2014 via Connect-Bridgeport.com
Coming off Friday’s 4-3 loss to South Harrison, Bridgeport High School Boys Soccer Coach Zane Satterfield knew what message he had to drill into the heads of his players.
“I told them they cannot come out slow against teams that have very talented forwards or we’ll find ourselves down early on. And they took that to heart. I put the players in the positions they needed to be in and gave them the game plans and they went out and did what I told them to do,” said Satterfield about Tuesday night’s match against Notre Dame High School. “We found ourselves up 2-0 early on.”
But that game – the team’s first home contest of the season – presented its own challenges.
“We started out really well and kind of let off the gas pedal and made a couple mistakes,” Satterfield said. “(Notre Dame) capitalized on our mistakes and scored every time.”
Doing the capitalizing was Notre Dame’s Philip Chafin, Class AA-A West Virginia Soccer Player of the Year for 2013.
The Tribe also had another strike against it.
“Our main defender and mid center back Sammy Coulter broke his collar bone during the second half,” Satterfield said. “He took a huge elbow for us. He’s our best – and most experienced defender. That will be tough to fill.”
Tuesday night’s game resulted in an even score - each team accumulating four goals. The Indians were fortunate to tie, Satterfield said.
“That last goal we scored, the refs pretty much handed it to us. They didn’t make the correct call and pretty much gave us a penalty kick,” he said.
Scoring for the Indians Tuesday were Tanner Furbee, Adam Bentz and Nick Strogen. Furbee scored twice.
After being up 2-0 so early in the game, the tie was pretty tough to deal with - yet it presented another learning opportunity – and the focus for the next week of practice.
“Varsity doesn’t play until Thursday of next week (Sept. 4) and that will be at Fairmont Senior,” Satterfield said. “We’re fortunate to have such a long break between the next couple of games, especially with Sammy’s injury and our defense in general. We’ll be working on defense – practicing that very hard.”
The bright spot in the Tribe’s performance has been its speed.
“We have so much speed and that’s where our attacks come from,” said Satterfield, naming Tanner Furbee and Justin Furby as players with notable quickness. “They are just phenomenal on the attack – and really our attack in general has surprised me because we lost three top scorers from last year and I really thought our main problem this year was going to be scoring goals, but it’s been the exact opposite: We can’t keep the other team from scoring.”
Those top three scorers from the 2013-2014 team are Joey Reese, Jared Lough and Fernando Porras.
Yet, others are stepping up.
“Tanner Furbee has scored three goals already this season and he scored two all last season,” Satterfield said.
Luke Cox is living up to expectations and Padraig Kirkwood has been playing above his.
“He played the whole game yesterday and I think maybe he only got into one varsity game last year,” Satterfield said. “He’s only a sophomore and he’s been one of our most solid players; stepping up from a non-starter last year.”
Although the varsity team is off for a week, JV plays today – in a home match against Morgantown.
Editor's Note: Photos by Tyler Maxwell of Ben Queen Photography. Top photo was taken during Friday's game against South Harrison. Just above is Bentz during Tuesday night's contest against Notre Dame. See more photos here:
