Wendy Haun
RICHMOND — Once again, it was junior forward Max Leetz who stepped up in a big way for the Berea Community boys soccer team.
Leetz scored a goal and had an assist as Berea rolled to a 2-0 victory over Model Tuesday in the semifinals of the 28th District Tournament at Memorial Field in Richmond.
“Max is one of the better offensive players in the region,” Berea coach Casey Poynter said. “He gets himself in the right positions. It’s going to be bad to lose him. He’s gelled so well with these guys. We’ve still got some noise to make, so he’s not done yet.”
Berea advances to the finals and will take on either Madison Central or Madison Southern at 7:45 p.m. Saturday in Richmond.
Leetz notched the first score for the Pirates five minutes into the game off of an assist from senior midfielder Silas Montgomery. Less than five minutes later, senior defenseman Ryan Smith nearly put one in the back of the net off a header from a corner kick, but it was blocked. Senior midfielder Riley Ambrose’s rebound shot was saved by Model junior goalkeeper Blake Neumann.
“I thought the whole effort was very good,” Model coach Steve Savage said. “The game was pretty even. If you make a mistake, you expect to be punished and you’re grateful when you’re not. When you make four mistakes in a row, you should be pulling your hair out. They played really hard and gave everything they had to the end.”
With 11:40 left in the first half, Leetz fed the ball to freshman forward Nathan Vaughn, who was waiting in front of the net in the penalty box. Vaughn easily put the ball into the back of the net to give Berea a 2-0 lead that would eventually hold throughout the rest of the game. Poynter said the main reason Vaughn got some minutes was because the Pirates were missing their sophomore midfielder Chase Riddle, who was benched one game for receiving a red card during their last game against West Jessamine.
“Nathan has been playing well at practice,” Poynter said. “He’s got good ball touch and he gets himself in the right position as well. With Chase Riddle out, he was able to split time with Stephen Compton and Ben Livingston. He scored a couple of goals during the Pulaski Cup, so I knew he was capable.”
The second half was much more physical. Model’s Anders Kipp, Matt Witt and Matt Wylie were all issued yellow cards (Kipp and Wylie for unsporting conduct, Witt for dissent) and Berea’s Montgomery and Stephen Saylor, both for unsporting conduct.
“Stephen Saylor played tremendous. He was everywhere,” Poynter said. “He got booked there for that yellow card, but that was because he was playing so hard. It wasn’t anything that he did, necessarily.”
Despite there being 20 shots on goal during the first half, the second half only saw 11 shots on goal combined by both teams. Model freshman striker Hunter Conner had a shot that went wide right by the slimmest margin with 12 minutes left in the game. Compton had a shot on goal that Neumann had an excellent diving block to clear it out of the penalty box. With the loss, Model fell to 8-9-3 on the season.
One major boost for the Pirates was the return of Livingston. The senior who hasn’t played a game this season due to a knee injury in July, should be back to full strength by the regional tournament.
“His dad told me to give him some minutes so we could see how his leg was going to hold up and to see if he was going to swell,” Poynter said. “In some sense, a 75- or 80-percent Ben is a great soccer player, so we wanted to give him a couple looks. We put him in a position where he didn’t have to do a lot of running and could shy away from contact.”
Berea (13-5-2) clinched a trip to the district championship game and the 14th Regional Tournament with the win.
“We’re going to be playing the flat-back four and we didn’t play that the first time against Central,” Poynter said. “We’re going to try to control the width of the field defensively. I think we can do it. It helps us out a lot more. We’re a stronger team that way.”
