Saints come marching back to defeat Eagles

Published Thu, Mar 27, 2008 12:00 AM

By BUDDY HUGHES
bhughes@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5533

At times Wednesday, the only thing between aSt. Andrew's player and a goal was Beaufort Academy goalkeeper Kyle Cheung.

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The junior kept an undermanned Eagles squad with no subs in the game with 11 first-half saves. It looked as if Cheung's hard worked paid off when BA pulled ahead in the second half.

But the Saints scored three second-half goals to cap a 4-2 comeback win and keep the Eagles winless on the season.

The deck was stacked against BA after it lost leader Glen Kilgore to a leg injury. Kilgore was kicked in the calf while going for a ball late in the first half. The Eagles had to play a man down the entire second half.

"You can't be more proud of them," BA coach Matt Marshall said. "They showed tremendous pride and a lot of heart. As a coach, you got to love that."

Beaufort Academy wasn't affected by the loss early in the second half, pulling ahead 2-1 on a goal by Patrick Walker . The freshman lofted a shot toward goal from 30 yards out that fooled the St. Andrew's goalkeeper and fell just in front of the crossbar and bounced into the net.

It was the first goal for Walker in high school competition and one that made his coach very proud.

"I've never said I feel good after a loss, but I've coached (Walker) for a while now and for him to score his first high school goal (is exciting)," Marshall said.

The joy was short-lived because St. Andrew's Kwan Del Kyo tied the game up minutes later. Del Kyo took advantage of a rare miscue by Cheung, who had come out to challenge another striker.

Instead, the ball was passed to Del Kyo, who gently guided it in for the equalizer with 15 minutes left to play.

The game appeared to be heading to overtime until a defensive miscue allowed the Saints to score the game winner. Two BA defenders tried to cut off St. Andrew's Ty Massey's route to the goal. In doing so, Nathan Akers tried to clear the ball out of BA's zone. Akers miss-hit the ball, sending it the Saints' Gerrick Haase.

Haase tapped the ball into the net and added another goal to ice the game after Beaufort moved up all of its defenders to make a run on goal .

"Beaufort played really well considering they had no subs," St. Andrew's coach Charles Moore said." All in all, I thought it was a real good game and tighter than the score suggested."

Beaufort Academy would not have had a chance to give St. Andrew's 3-0, 2-0 SCISA Region 4) much of a challenge without Cheung's play in goal.

The defense faltered early for BA, giving the Saints decent shots on goal. Cheung did his best imitation of a wall, sending back everything until Massey got loose on the left wing and beat Cheung with a dart into the upper right portion of the net to make it 1-0.

"We were down on defense, so they had a lot more guys to run at us," Cheung said. "Being down (a man) is tough."

Mooretold his team that if they kept pressing, they could break Cheung. But despite getting the win and a couple of goals, they never were able to break him. It earned Cheung a lot of respect from Moore.

"Their keeper was exceptional," Moore said. "He was the man of the match on either side. We just couldn't break him down."

Beaufort Academy came back to tie the game at one on a putback by Nathan Akers. After Ethan Konoza's shot bounced off the St. Andrew's goalkeeper, Akers took advantage of perfect positioning and delivered the follow-up into the back of the net for a 1-1 game and held them off the rest of the half.

"We played really well," Cheung said. "If we had subs, we might be tied right now and heading into overtime."

Beaufort Academy (0-3, 0-1 region) will try to get its first win Tuesday when it hosts Hilton Head Christian at 4 p.m.

Saints come marching back to defeat Eagles