Heritage boys soccer shuts out Lancers again

LYNCHBURG — In a battle for third place in the Seminole District standings, Amherst’s boys soccer team was shut out for the second time this season by Heritage goalkeeper Austin Walker and suffered a 1-0 defeat Friday night at Heritage.

“They beat us both times 1-0,” Lancers coach Tom McBride said. “I can’t figure it out.”

Picking up a red card, to go with four yellows, and playing 10-on-11 for much of the second half didn’t help Amherst’s cause. But even at full strength, as they were in the first half, and when they penetrated through the Pioneers’ defense, the Lancers had trouble getting the ball past Walker.

“Number one, they’ve probably got one of the best goalkeepers in the state,” McBride said. “Austin Walker’s just a great goalkeeper. You basically have to shoot it out of a cannon to get it by him and he’s just — everywhere we put the ball, there he is making a diving save or getting his hands on the ball. We just haven’t found a way to get it past that guy yet. At times, we worked it through the defense and got decent shots, but he just shuts you down.”

The Lancers (8-5-1, 6-5 Seminole) had a golden opportunity to break a scoreless tie early in the second half. But after an Amherst striker was tripped up in Heritage’s box, Matt Rob Payne lifted his penalty kick over Walker and the crossbar — it careened off the football field goal bar.

“(Payne) is normally the guy that when we get penalty kicks, that’s who we go to,” McBride said. “(Friday) was his birthday of all days, so I thought for sure we were going to get one in the net. We were off frame quite a bit and again that’s because of his presence. We come in knowing that it’s going to take a great shot to get one by him.”

Three minutes later, Heritage Heritage (8-6-1, 6-4-1) capitalized on a breakaway opportunity to record the game’s only goal.

“They caught us in transition and beat us back up the field and got a shot off before our defense was able to get back and establish themselves,” McBride said. “They just were able to get it done and we weren’t.”

Left wing Caleb Choi finished an assist from Jake Haskins past Lancers keeper Andrew Bray.

“Jake crossed it and it bounced once and then I couldn’t shoot it, so I kneed it with my thigh and went that way,” said Choi, who was elbowed in the neck to the ground by Dylan Nixon moments later near midfield, prompting the red card. “Amherst is a real good team. They’re aggressive.”

Besides Walker’s impenetrable presence on the goal line, the Pioneers’ neutralized Amherst’s primary threat, senior forward Jon Ascencio, with a smothering defense.

“Jon had a few breakaways, a couple opportunities, but not like he usually does,” McBride said. “They were keying on him, trying to take him out of our offense.

“We were using a 4-5-1 with Jon up top, trying to get the ball at his feet and let him hold it,” he added. “It looked like to me, they were almost, like in basketball how they’ll sometimes run a box-in-one. It looked like they had (defender Jimmy) Gaston on the back line and everywhere Jon went, Gaston went with him, so they had him marked up. That was their goal, I think, to take Jon out of the ballgame.”

Still, the Lancers were in the game the whole time and actually had as many quality scoring chances as the Pioneers despite playing down a man for the last 30 minutes.

“To me, it was a game of two halves,” McBride said. “The first half, they took it to us and they didn’t score and the second half, I thought we more or less took it to them, but they found the net and we didn’t.”

Like in hockey at the end of a game, Amherst pulled Bray out of the goal and up on attack for their final opportunity, a corner kick in the closing 30 seconds. But it didn’t help as Payne’s final shot from the right wing landed on top of the netting just over the top left corner of the crossbar as time expired.

The Lancers concluded their regular season Tuesday night against Brookville, which beat them 1-0 on a penalty kick in the teams’ first meeting.

McBride, for one, doesn’t think Amherst is going to be deflated by the narrow defeats going into next week’s Seminole District tournament.

“I think we’ve got quite a few seniors and they’ll be focused,” he said. “They don’t want to go out early in the tournament. They’re going to turn things around.”

Heritage 1, Amherst 0

Amherst 0 0 - 0

Heritage 0 1 - 1

Scoring: Caleb Choi assisted by Jake Haskins, 47:00. Saves: Austin Walker (H) 8, Andrew Bray (A) 6.

Records: Heritage 8-6-1, 6-4-1; Amherst 8-5-1, 6-5.