High school sectional soccer action starts tonight at Wayne Jamison Field. The Indians face Liberty High School in a 6 p.m. contest.

 

Coach Zane Satterfield says the Tribe is ready to focus on the game – which should be a very good one.

 

“Even though we look forward to Byrd on Wednesday if we win tonight, we cannot overlook Liberty. They are a good team and we only beat them 4-2 during the regular season,” he said. “And they just tied Grafton on Thursday and Grafton is a good team. They beat us 4-2.”

 

The game plan, Satterfield said, is to score early and often.

 

“If you do that in high school soccer, it’s very, very hard for a team to fight back,” he said. “We have to score early and keep scoring. We do that by pressing and we press high up the field and not let them play their game.”

 

The Indians enter the sectional tourney with a 6-11-3 record. Most recently, the team fell to Buckhannon and University and had a win over Lincoln.

 

The Oct. 9 game against Buckhannon was played on the Indians’ home turf. The Tribe lost 3-0, but considering the fact that the lineup had been shuffled, the team didn’t have too bad of a performance, Satterfield said.

 

“That was our second game without Justin Furbee, our main center back, and Noah Rhine, our goalie, who were both serving suspension for being red carded in the Charleston Catholic game,” he said. “So I had to change some things up.”

 

First-year players Alec Balon and Lucas Crayton started as center back and goalie, respectively.

 

“Honestly, Buckhannon is one of the best AAA teams we’ve seen other than Morgantown and we held our ground for a lot of the game,” Satterfield said. “(Buckhannon) scored two goals the last five minutes of the first half and up to that point, we were frustrating the crap out of them … We had been shutting them down in every area, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.”

 

On Oct. 14, the Tribe faced University High School, also a home contest. Satterfield had his full roster back. The game resulted in a 5-3 loss, but it was BHS which held an early lead.

 

“It was a very frustrating game,” Satterfield said. “We scored 15 seconds into the game – and (the Hawks) started with the ball. In the next 15 minutes, we ended up scoring two more times and went up 3-0 in the first 15 to 20 minutes of the game.”

 

At the time, University was ranked seventh in AAA and the Indians were ranked 19^th in AA.

 

Needless to say, that would have been a giant win for the Tribe.

 

“We were playing the way I have expected – the way I knew they could play all season and we were showing just how good of a team we were,” Satterfield said. “I told them to keep pressing and keep scoring, but they were a very good team and got two goals back before halftime.”

University subsequently scored on a penalty kick during the first five minutes of the second half, tying it up.

 

“Then they had the momentum to keep it going for them and we couldn’t fight back,” Satterfield said.

 

On Oct. 16, the Indians picked up their sixth win of the season. Freshman Adam Bentz scored a pair of goals for the 3-0 shutout against Lincoln.

 

“I was really pleased with how Adam played,” Satterfield said.

 

Overall, the Indians performed very well and limited the Cougars to two shots, neither of which they capitalized on.

 

“But then we had 30 shots and scored only three goals,” Satterfield said. “But that’s going to happen when we have a freshman as our only forward and he lacks that high school scoring nature like Philip (Chafin) from Notre Dame and Chaz (Rodeheaver) from RCB. Those guys are vets of high school soccer and know how to put the ball in the net every time. But that’s going to come for Adam. He has eight or nine goals this season and that’s good for a freshman.”

 

Also scoring for the Indians on Thursday was Nick Strogen.

 

The Lady Indians enter sectionals this Wednesday, facing the winner of the Lincoln/South Harrison game.  

 

Look for results and photos of tonight’s boys sectional action here on Connect-Bridgeport. 

 

Editor's Note: Photos taken by Tyler Maxwell of Ben Queen Photography at last week's game against University High School. See more images HERE.