Highlands soccer fights hard against Swain, come up short 3-1
Photo by Christopher Smith/Staff Ronaldo Factor dribbles the ball downfield.
The Highlands School varsity boys’ soccer team started strong but couldn’t finish off the Swain County Maroon Devils on Monday night, falling 3-1.
The Highlanders got things going right away with a couple early shots and a corner, but they couldn’t hit the goal.
With 31:55 left in the first half, Swain had a hard shot on goal, but Highlander goalkeeper Sam Stiwinter came up with a strong hand, knocking the shot away.
Just after the save, Swain received an indirect penalty kick outside the 18-yard box, but it went over the goal.
Ronaldo Factor had a cross in Swain’s box, but it was headed out by Swain’s defense, giving a corner to HHS.
The corner was unsuccessful, and Swain went on the attack, but shot over the goal.
Another shot by a Highlander went straight to the Swain goalkeeper with 18:11 left in the first half.
Nathan Keener dribbled down the Swain sideline and shot, but the ball went wide right.
With 14:32 left in the first half, Swain struck first blood on a header from a corner to go up 1-0.
The Highlanders didn’t give up as Keener had another shot that went wide left. With 7:57 left in the half, Stiwinter had another big save to keep the score at 1-0 going into halftime.
Keener opened the second half with a shot going wide left.
10 minutes into the second half, Highlands capitalized on a corner when #3 headed the ball past the Swain keeper to even the score 1-1.
Highlands kept the pressure on but couldn’t find the back of the net, with multiple shots from Factor, Keener and Win Dyleski.
Swain responded with a hard shot right outside the 18-yard box, going over the head of Stiwinter, into the back of the net. The Maroon Devils went up 2-1 with 12:35 left in the game.
Both defenses held strong for the rest of the game, until a penalty kick was given to Swain. The forward slipped it past Stiwinter into the lower right corner to finish the scoring effort 3-1.
“I think we played excellent in the first half,” HHS head coach Caleb Brown said. “We created a lot of chances and had several opportunities; we just couldn’t finish and bring it home. We had a ton of set pieces, and we had one with a great header, but the others, we just couldn’t get them under the crossbar.”
Brown said the team has improved this season, especially in the midfield.
“We are doing a lot better at winning those 50/50 balls in the middle,” Brown said. “We are playing a lot smarter out of the back, but we did have that penalty kick and a couple balls that were whiffed in the back, but overall, they have been playing well. I think we had a lot more passes strung together in and around the 18, but we just couldn’t finish.”
Looking forward to the rest of the season, Brown said the team is going to work on stringing together passes more consistently.
“We need to make our passes a little more consistent and resetting to make sure that we put the ball back on the 18-yard box before trying to dribble it or take a shot,” Brown said. “We are also going to work on set pieces. We didn’t get a lot of free kicks tonight, but we need to work on corners and other set pieces.”
With the loss, The Highlanders are now 2-3 on the season. They will face Blue Ridge Monday, Oct. 4, at home at 6 p.m.
- By Christopher Smith