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Catholic Central rolls by Cambridge for first win

BOUNCING — Catholic Central’s Ethan Moore receives a pass off his chest against Cambridge on Saturday. Also shown is Nick Kissinger (20). (Photo by Andrew Grimm)

STEUBENVILLE — It would have been easy for the Steubenville Catholic Central boys soccer to get frustrated after firing 19 shots towards the Cambridge net in the first half of Saturday’s season opener and only coming away with one goal.

Steve Kopcha’s team, however, remained patient and found the back of the net three times in the second half to pull away for a 4-1 victory over the Bobcats at the Tony Recinella Soccer Field.

“It’s a good start to the season with the win,” Kopcha said. “Cambridge is a quality opponent to start off with. It was just a matter of being patient. We tell our guys to just keep on shooting. We hit a couple of posts — that’s just the luck sometimes — but you need to keep shooting.

“Eventually, if you keep shooting, you will find the back of the net, and that is what we had to do (Saturday).”

Keep shooting is exactly what his team did, attempting 40 in the game, 18 of which were on target.

“In order to score goals, you’ve got to shoot,” Kopcha said. “We stress that to our guys. If they have an opening, we tell everyone on this team not to be afraid to shoot.”

The Crusaders got a pair of goals from sophomore forward Michael Lee, the first of which opened the scoring about halfway through the opening half when his shot went off the goalkeeper and rolled into the net.

“It feels great to start with a win,” Lee said. “This team is like playing with your brothers. We are having fun out there, and it is really good to start like this. Their goalie did a really good job.”

After not making a save in the first 40-plus minutes, Catholic Central senior goalkeeper Travis Shore made an early save in the second half to preserve the lead. His teammates then gave him some insurance.

Gian Asci netted a Juan Miguel Gonzalez rebound in the 55th minute. Kolbe Rice then buried a feed from David Kissinger to push the advantage to 3-0 in the 57th.

“Travis is one of our seniors, and we are very confident in him back there,” Kopcha said. “He and our defense were able to keep that one goal lead to give our offense enough time to get a couple more goals.”

The Bobcats got on the board with less than 18 to play when Nick Oliver converted on a cross pass from Jared Birkhimer to make it 3-1.

“We’re pretty young on the backline,” Cambridge coach J.R. Fox said. “We are steps ahead of where we were at this time last year. We got a goal and did not get shut out — that’s a big thing for us right now. We are trying to find people that can score because that is mostly what we lost from last year.”

On the flip side of all of those Crusader shots was Bobcats goalkeeper Evan Hannon, who finished with 14 saves.

Catholic Central got it right back just a little more than two minutes later when Lee netted his second on a pass from Asci, giving the Crusaders the 4-1 win.

The Crusaders are back home on Thursday against Weir High.

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