Rebels send Wesview to early vacation

Posted: Friday, May 10, 2013 12:00 pm

By KEVIN WEAKS
Press Sports
The Westview soccer team and their head coach will have some rare time off in May.
Dan Scates is not expecting it to happen again anytime soon.
The Chargers suffered an early end to their 2013 soccer season with a 4-1 loss to Obion Central in the Region 7A-AA Tournament quarterfinals Tuesday afternoon at Troy.
“I’m very optimistic about our future,” Scates said. “We’ll return eight starters, and then we have some other sophomores and freshmen who are ready to step into the lineup. So, I think the future looks bright. This will be a tough district next year, and I feel good about our chances. I’m not promising anything, but with the experience we have back, we ought to be in the hunt.”
The loss ends an 18-year run of getting as far as the regional semifinals for Westview.
The teams were knotted 1-all at the half, but OC aggressively attacked the goal early in the second half to take control of the match.
Overpowering the Chargers at the net, Central scored at 30:24 of the second when Alex Terrell pushed one across the line.
That seemed to energize the Rebels as the team stayed on the attack for most of the second half.
“When Central got their second goal, they seemed to keep their energy up the rest of the game,” Scates said. “Not to say we didn’t battle, but I think one thing they have this year they haven’t had in the past is foot speed.”
The Rebels added to their lead when Jose Camacho took a pass from Mario Ramirez on a well-executed break and fired a long shot past Westview goalkeeper Conner Blanchard for a 3-1 lead.
Central capped off its scoring with under two minutes to play when Ian Miller found the net on a header from a corner kick by Alejandro Ramirez.
“We just never could get into a flow and made some key mistakes on defense that broke the game open,” Scates said. “Some of that goes back to communication, some of it goes back to Obion County being in the right spots to cash in on those mistakes. All in all, we were kind of sloppy and inconsistent, and Central took advantage of that.”
After being denied several times by Blanchard, OC struck first at 18:20 of the first half when Eric Torres took a pass from Alejandro Ramirez and blooped a shot over the Westview keeper for a 1-0 lead.
The Chargers came right back, though, and knotted the score when Ashton Meyer won a battle in front of the goal to score with 11:45 to play in the first half.
“That seemed to put some life into us, and I felt pretty good right there,” Scates said. “This is a funny game sometimes. You get some momentum and it energizes your defense and overall play.”
In addition to graduating some of the program’s all-time best players last year, Westview dealt with injuries to Nic Fortner, Cameron Cates and Wesley Grimes.
Graduating from this year’s team will be Fortner, Grimes, Chase Thweatt and Jorge Fabian.

Published in The WCP 5.9.13