Seniors Gabe Flynn, Josh Jones and Ian Collins joined regular varsity contributor Alex Just in the starting lineup for the Blair Bears' Senior Night boys soccer match with Omaha North on Tuesday.
After 80 minutes at Krantz Field, coach Peter Massa's four 12th-graders celebrated a 3-1 victory with their teammates.
“I've been on JV all four years, which I was OK with, but it's nice to be able to play varsity,” Collins said at the conclusion of the match. “And the coaches all said I did good or really good, and that meant something to me.”
BHS and the Vikings played even soccer through the first 10 minutes of game time before the Bears' first goal in the 14th.
“Our main thing going into the game was being into it mentally,” Collins said. “The past couple of games have been rough and it's because we haven't been in the game from the start.”
He felt that changed against North.
“I think we did a good job with that today,” Collins said.
A shining example of Blair's sharp play was its first goal. Just cleanly played the ball ahead down the east side of the field, setting up junior Isaac Field, who sprinted to it, raced around a defender and sent a crossing pass to forward Drew Wulf.
“It was just all-around connection from the team,” the pass recipient said.
Once the ball was at Wulf's feet, he booted it into the net for a 1-0 advantage.
“It was a pretty easy finish,” the junior said. “I shot it right back at the keeper.”
The Bears next scored during the 22nd minute when defender Jarred Kros was able to get a piece of a corner kick in the box. The ball then went off of a Viking and into the back of the net again for a 2-0 score.
The home team's lead held through halftime, but didn't last into the 57th minute of the match. Omaha North scored in the 56th, cuttingits deficit in half.
Wulf said there were some early struggles for the Bears during the second half, but they corrected them.
“Our back line got back into it,” he explained. “We got more organized and we started playing through our midfield.”
Victor Hernanez eventually all but sealed the victory with his goal in the 66th minute as the Bears improved to 4-4 overall. It was a much-needed victory on Senior Night, according to Wulf.
“As a whole, we played as a team,” he said. “We've kind of been struggling with that lately, but I'd say this was a pretty big bounce-back game. We needed it for the rest of our season.”
Blair was scheduled to play at Gretna on Thursday and next competes 7:30 p.m. Monday at home against Gretna East.
BHS SOCCER LINE SCORE
Tuesday
Blair 3, Omaha North 1
ON (3-3) 0 1 — 1
BHS (4-4) 2 1 — 3
Blair goals: Drew Wulf 1, Jarred Kros 1 and Victor Hernandez 1. Winning goalkeepers: Gabe Flynn and Luke Donner.
