By Mike McCombs
The Island News
Bridges Prep’s boys soccer team left everything they had on the school’s new soccer pitch on Monday, May 5. But it wasn’t enough as 14th-seeded Batesburg-Leesville upset the third-seeded Buccaneers, 2-1, to knock them out of the S.C. High School League 2A playoffs.
The only previous wins this season for now 3-11 Batesburg-Leesville – two of them – came against American Leadership Academy.
“We just woke up too late. We have talented players, and they just came out a little flat-footed,” Bridges Prep coach Bruce Marraquin said. “Once they got up two goals, it was hard to come back. In the second half, we were slowly trying to chip away, building up the momentum. But once you fall behind like that, it’s hard to get back up. I don’t think they had anything that we weren’t prepared for. It was a physical game. And out guys just woke up a little too late.”
The Buccaneers found themselves in a hole in the first few minutes when the Panthers (3-11) took a 1-0 lead. The Panthers’ Jose Godinez was credited with the goal, but it appeared the Bucs were trying to clear the ball out of their own box when it deflected off a defender and found the back of the net.
The Buccaneers (9-3) almost made it to halftime with that score, but Gabriel Johnson scored off a corner kick late – during the under 2:00/injury time – to send the game to halftime at 2-0 in favor of the Panthers.
Johnson, small in stature but remarkably quick, seemed to be all over the field for Batesburg-Leesville.
“They had some tenacity. They were using No. 8 [Johnson] a lot, Marraquin said. “… It took a while to adjust to his speed. You can’t coach speed, and they used him pretty well. … But nothing that we haven’t seen before.”
If the Buccaneers started the game flat-footed, they were anything but in the second half, dominating possession and attacking relentlessly. Finally, it paid off with 13:42 remaining when Leo Della Valle found the back of the net to cut the Panthers’ lead to one goal.
But despite having all of the momentum and numerous opportunities, the Buccaneers could never score the equalizer.
“Absolutely, the whole game shifted [with Leo’s goal),” Marraquin said. “The first half, we came out flat-footed. The second half, I feel like we dominated most of the possession, we controlled the field pretty well, and we just didn’t capitalize on the opportunities we had. We had like six corners and unfortunately, we didn’t find the back of the net. Missed opportunities we had there. We just missed it, we didn’t capitalize.”
The game, while the first on the new pitch, was the final one for seven Bridges Prep seniors. Still, Marraquin said, the future looks good.
“This program is still young. We’ve got a bright future here,” he said. “We have a lot of 8th Graders who decided to forego the middle school [program] and jump in at JV, and I hope they learned a lot from that. I’m sad for the seniors … I was hopeful that we’d go a little further for them and try to get that state championship. It just didn’t happen.”
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
