'Riders play well against Trojans

ST. MARYS - The St. Marys soccer team showed flashes of greatness in Saturday's 4-1 win at Roughrider Field over Botkins, a team ranked eighth in the latest Miami Valley Scholastic Soccer Association poll.

The 'Riders controlled the time of possession, mounted 28 scoring chances and limited the Trojans to just a handful of opportunities.

Even with the impressive showing, St. Marys coach Dave Ring believes his team has the potential to be ever better, perhaps more so than last year's team which played its way into the Division II regional finals.

"When we play to our potential, we're a final eight team just like we were last year," Ring said. "I think this team is actually better than last year's team. We just haven't played to our potential. You've got to score goals and you can't give them up. Last year, we could score one goal and we'd win the game. This year, we've got to score a couple more because we give up the ugly goal which is something we have to get a little better at.

"From where we were at the first game of the season to where we are now, it's 100 percent improvement and we're getting better every game and we're beginning to show our dominance."

Nathan Wilker began the scoring early, heading in a goal on the corner kick by Zac Nelson 15 minutes into play. Dakota McVety scored on a good pass from Joe Poeppelman with 4:19 left in the first to put the 'Riders up 2-0.

Botkins struck back with 26 seconds left in the first half as Erik Greve rebounded a shot attempt and scored to make the score 2-1.

After that, St. Marys shut down the Trojans.

Nelson, Wilker and Nathan Falk all had valid scoring chances in the first half and early in the second half, but couldn't quite find the back of the net. Botkins' goalie Christian Hoskins made a leaping, one-handed save on Nelson's shot with 25 minutes remaining in the second half. Hoskins then made a diving save on Wilker's shot one minute later and Wilker had a ball hit off the post four minutes later.

Nelson finally scored a goal with 17:30 left on the clock, St. Marys goalie Keegan Liette made a clutch diving save with 6:50 to go and Brayden Bubp burned Hoskins on a penalty kick with 3:31 left as the 'Riders improved to 3-2-1 on the season.

"Our possession has really gotten better. Our cohesion as a team is getting better," Ring said. "We've just got to finish our opportunities. I think we had 28 opportunities tonight and we've got to put them away better. That's going to come. We've got great ideas, but we've got to come up with some solutions on the finish."

St. Marys gets to the heart of its Western Buckeye League schedule in the coming weeks, playing at Elida on Tuesday and then playing Bath (Sept. 15), Celina (Sept. 18) and Defiance (Sept. 23).

"League play is setting up nice," Ring said. "We got Elida coming up and Celina. We're peaking at the right time. I think most of the best teams in the WBL are going to be and we're getting better each day. I'm really excited about that."