South Walton Nips PSJ in District Title Thriller

At the second-half water break visiting South Walton seemed drenched in the exuberance of pending victory.

Over the next 18 minutes the host Tiger Sharks extracted every bit of sweat from the Seahawks who held off a late Port St. Joe push for a 3-2 victory in the District 2-2A boys’ soccer title game.

South Walton (13-1-2) hosts the loser of the Freeport-Rocky Bayou Christian District 1-2A title tilt, also played Friday night, in next Thursday’s Region 1 quarterfinals. The Tiger Sharks (7-9-2) travel to meet the winner of that game the same night.

“That was not the kind of game I like,” said South Walton coach Danny Blaine. “That was too tight. But give credit to (Port St. Joe) Coach (Gary) Hindley. Have you seen his resume? He’s a heckuva coach and he’s done a great job with that team.”

For much of the game Blaine seemed to have little to worry about.

While his defense, particularly the back wall of halfbacks Chase Cox and Wade Howard and sweeper Margo Cedillo, was stellar, keeper Jose Aguilar virtually unchallenged, the Seahawk offense managed the lone goals in a high-energy first half.

The Seahawks had four corner-kick chances go for naught before Jose Flores scored the first of his two goals on a bizarre penalty kick sequence.

With the kick inside the goal box, Flores beat Port St. Joe keeper Austin Howse but the referee called a player in the box prior to the kick forcing a re-kick.

Flores was wide the second time but a foul was called on Port St. Joe for an errant hip in the jostling for position and Flores converted the third try from even closer for a 1-0 lead.

Flores made it 2-0 with just over 10 minutes left in the first half when he split two defenders on a breakaway, caught up with a perfectly placed pass from Patrick Ryan and pushed the ball past Howse.

The Tiger Sharks had chances in a half only sporadically played in the middle of the field, but could not penetrate the Seahawk defense as Aguilar was not forced to make a save despite several decent looks for Port St. Joe.

“I told them at halftime that I thought we could come back from a two goal deficit, but I wasn’t sure about a three goal margin,” Hindley said. “Then they (South Walton) scored that third goal.”

The goal came off the leg of Lelo Gordillo, set up nicely in the box by a crossing pass from Beau Vermillon, and the Seahawks were up 3-0 less than two minutes into the second half.

But over the final 23 minutes, particularly after the water break at the 19:00 mark, the Tiger Sharks, specifically the offensive front of Jared Arnold, J. Mason Ray and Reis Nelson, took over the game.

“Our young men started panicking,” Blaine said. “They pressed us and we lost our composure.”

From midfield with just under 23 minutes left, Ray found a streaking Arnold with a lofted pass and Arnold barreled in on Aguilar. The keeper stopped the initial shot but Arnold somehow kept the ball alive and managed another shot that Aguilar also stopped but could not control.

Nelson was on the spot and banged in the rebound for the goal and the home crowd erupted.

Nine minutes later Ray sailed a penalty kick from the left side to the right of the net where Nelson was in position for a nicely played header that sailed over Aguilar and into the net and it was 3-2.

Arnold had another golden opportunity minutes later but his shot was blocked and two subsequent corner kicks were unsuccessful.

Ray had three penalty kicks from just outside the top of the goal box; two stopped by Aguilar another by the defense. Arnold was high from 25 yards and Chase Watford wide right from 10 yards, all coming in the final 10 minutes.

“You can’t just dig yourself a hole like that and expect to climb out. When you play that poor of defense it is hard to come back on anybody,” Hindley said. “After the water break I thought we played with a lot of energy. I’ve been trying to teach them all year to play real soccer and that was real soccer.

“But in the first half I thought we resorted to how we played when we played (South Walton) early in the season (a loss). We just did not play good defense.”