LocalSportsJournal.com
HART — Looking for its first West Michigan Conference win of the season, Hart’s boys soccer team accomplished it with a hard fought 2-0 decision over Oakridge at home Monday night.
After losing close and tough games to the three front-runners, and tying Montague, the Pirates were determined to snap their winless streak.
The Pirates knew that they had to lock down the Eagles’ Arturo Romero if they hoped to be successful, and did so with Brayden Gilland holding him to one shot on the target the entire game.
Kyan Clark finished with just three saves in net for the Pirates, but did a great job thwarting any through balls that Oakridge attempted with some brilliant sweeper keeping.
In addition to his defensive contributions, Galland helped trigger the Pirates’ first scoring play when he won a ball in the middle and took off on a run to the Oakridge end.
He laid off a pass for Adan Cruz, who dropped a shot that bounced over the Eagles’ keeper to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead.
Oakridge kept pushing, but the Pirates got a break with a foul about 23 yards out from the net that team captain Guillermo Ortega made a brilliant heads up play on, zipping a shot over the Oakridge keeper while the Eagles were busy setting up their defense.
It was the Pirates’ first shutout of a conference opponent since registering a clean sheet in defeating Ravenna last fall.
Hart’s centerback pairing of Julio Sarabia and Gilland who had an excellent game keeping Romero out and any others from sneaking in and were named Men of the Match.
The Pirates improved to 5-4-1 overall and 1-3-1 in the conference. Hart next travels to Fremont on Wednesday night for another conference game.
Oakridge fell to 8-4-1 overall and 3-3-0 in the conference. The Eagles host front-running Ludington for another conference game on Thursday.
