By HUNTER O. LYLE
ALLEGANY, NY – Having their home turf back under their cleats, the Allegany-Limestone boy’s soccer team got back to work with a new target in mind: returning to the Section VI Class B championship. Their march to the big stage began with a big win, finding a 4-1 victory over Olmstead.
Ending with a 11-2-2 record, as well as a Chautauqua Cattaraugus Athletic Association Division I league title, the Gators drew the second seed, earning home field advantage against the Owls. While the program has been tried and tested, recently reaching the Sectional championship one year ago and the New York Public High School Athletic Association State Championship a season before that, head coach Jon Luce was eager to give some new faces a taste of the action.
“Yes, we’ve been battle tested and some of these kids have been on those teams, but this is a new group that hasn’t experienced that as much,” said Luce. “We’ve been trying to prepare them as much as possible that any mistake could be costly and end our season or we do just a couple things correctly and our season continues.”
Matched up against the 3-12-1 Owls, who play in the Buffalo sub-regional Blue League, A-L’s offensive prowess arrived early.
Getting a shot off in the opening 30 seconds of the match, the Gators quickly set up shop in Olmstead’s box, pestering and probing as they continuously applied pressure. Against the reactive rather than proactive Owls’ defense, A-L found a crack in the armor sooner rather than later. At the eight-minute mark, a long direct kick from Donovan Booker at midfield sailed above the crowd, ultimately being batted around before colliding off an Olmstead defender and into their own goal.
However, as the Gators eased off the gas for just a moment, Olmstead pushed down on their own pedal. Finding a gap in the defense, two swift outlets quickly flipped the field and as a window briefly opened, the Owls broke through, finding a top-shelf score to even the goal. Gaining a rush of momentum, they then held on, finding repeat entries downfield, albeit, with nothing coming close to a shot.
Meanwhile, A-L’s offense began to slip. Looking to rush up the field, they relied on long boots to carve paths upfield, only to have their lone wolf drives turned away and repeated.
“Offensively, I think we need to play to our strengths with possessing the ball in the middle and not just kicking and running. It’s not that type of soccer that we’re typically used to,” said Luce. “So, we have to look for more possession, more communication on the backside and hopefully fix what we need to take care of.”
Still garnering control through their lull, one kick from Collin Coleman would reverse the tide. Lining up for a direct roughly 30 yards away from the net, the Gators’ leading scorer sent a high-arching shot lofting over the crowd. Beautifully placed, the ball sunk right behind the Owls’ goaltender, putting A-L back in front and giving Coleman his 12th goal of the season.
From there, the Gators’ returned to the hunt. Relentlessly hounding the defense, A-L kept the ball within their possession, finding multiple corners and directs as they approached. Once again, Olmstead caved under the pressure. With just just over three minutes left before the break, a botched goal kick found the foot of Owen Buzzard, the Gators’ second-leading scorer. Turning and targeting, Buzzard punched in his eighth of the year, giving A-L a 3-1 lead heading into halftime.
The Gators’ aggression failed to yield after the intermission. Stripping Olmstead of their initial touch, A-L cruised through the defense and netted another, with Buzzard having the honors with his second of the night.
“It was just having a conversion at the half and trying to build on what we were doing well. We were getting lots of chances (in the first half), we just weren’t capitalizing,” said Luce. “We just wanted to fix some of those things during the ten-minute break.”
While the Gators were unable to repeat the feat once again, they continuously maintained their authoritative pressure. While Olmstead mustered a few final drives down the stretch, they were held under an embargo and, without a miracle, their season came to a close in the Allegany Swamp. A-L, on the other hand, took one stride closer to another Blue Patch.
Returning to action on Thursday, the Gators will next take on Medina at home at 6 p.m.
“We’re going to take the positives from this game. There were times were we strung some passes together, we had some great turns, some great shots on goal. On the defensive end, we really didn’t give up a lot of clean shots, so we got in a lot of passing lanes,” said Luce. “It’s just cleaning up those few mistakes before the next game because teams are only going to get better as we go along.”
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