Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 12, 2001
SEMINOLE -- Clearwater Central Catholic kept its composure against Seminole on Tuesday, turning a 2-1 halftime deficit into a 4-2 win.
Morgan Riley scored twice in the first half for Seminole sandwiched around a Zach Stone goal for CCC, but the momentum had already shifted in the Marauders' direction.
"We didn't play our style in the beginning of the game," CCC coach Jim Harte said. "The game turned around in the first half. We started tackling better and winning the 50-50 balls. We just didn't have the goals to show for it."
In the second half, though, the goals came quickly. Within 2 minutes, CCC had taken a 3-2 lead on two breakaways.
The first came when Stone headed a high chip shot in the Warhawks midfield backwards to a sprinting Ted Anderson, who outran the defense. Anderson booted a left-footed shot high and left of Seminole goalkeeper Aaron Ingham to tie the game.
A little more than a minute later, the Marauders defense played the ball back and booted a liner through to another wide-open and sprinting midfielder.
This time, David Schreck beat Ingham to the ball for a 3-2 lead.
"They played 80 minutes and we didn't," Seminole coach Rick Masi said.
"We don't get a lot of competition in the district we're in, so when we play a team of CCC's caliber, sometimes we're not ready."
Brandon Giles, Seminole's best scorer, was marked well by Justin Ballance, taking Giles out of many scoring opportunities.
With less than 2 minutes left in the game, Seminole senior Stephen Skelton became aggressive trying to draw the Marauders into penalty opportunities.
But the Marauders kept their composure and Skelton was handed a yellow card.
Anderson gave CCC some insurance when he broke away and went left around a diving Ingham, dribbling the ball in front of the net until pressured to put it home by a Warhawk defenseman for his second goal.