In their bi-annual war of aggression last Friday, the Atlee and Lee-Davis soccer teams battled it out with the Raiders looking to avenge an earlier 2-1 home loss to the C-feds. It was a leave-it-all on the field contest in which 80 minutes of play were not enough. After the pair of overtime periods, the Confederates completed a regular season sweep of the Raiders 2-1.

  “Classic high school rivalry,” said Lee-Davis head coach Ed Kidder. “This is why you play high school sports. Some of these kids play on really good, high level, soccer teams, but you don’t have the emotion and the adrenaline flow.

  “I’m sure there’s about 22-23 tired young men tonight,” Kidder added while sympathizing with the Atlee team that was swept by Lee-Davis for the first time in recent memory. “Last year we had to walk off in the position that they’re walking off in tonight, so we know what it feels like.”

  Though his team lost, Atlee head coach Steven Thompson had no complaints with their effort. “We worked all the way to the end,” he said. “Even when they went up a goal in overtime we continued to work, which is something we can build on.”

  The Confederates spent most of the contest, working the ball up the sidelines largely due to the defensive presence of Atlee’s Shane Atkins in the middle. “Atlee’s got one of the best defensive players in the region (Atkins) and wherever he’s at on the field it’s just not smart to continually go at him,” Kidder said. “It’s not that we don’t have good offensive players, it’s just not smart and so he had to make a decision to commit to play those guys wide or we would attack from the width.”

  Lee-Davis got on the scoreboard first in the 27th minute of play when senior forward Eduardo Lopez raced to the ball in the left corner to execute a perfectly played attack. Finding his teammate, sophomore forward Blake Thompson, in position 10 yards out from the goal, Lopez fired an assist which Thompson booted past the defense of Atlee keeper Mike McCabe.

  From the sidelines, Kidder was heard to call out what his team would do before they actually performed the action. However the coach admitted he was not clairvoyant because it was something they practiced for the past two weeks. “We practice an awful lot of things that don’t happen,” he joked.

  Atlee tied the game in the 39th minute when Ryan Boothe scored from the left side off an assist from Ian Shelton.

  “The tide seemed to change two different times,” Thompson said. “They seemed to have the better of it for the first of the game. We got control of it for the second part and it was just evenly matched all the way through.”

  Neither team scored in the second half or the first period of overtime, largely due to the defensive efforts of both keepers. While Atlee’s McCabe turned in another spectacular performance with 14 saves, he was perhaps one upped in this particular contest by Lee-Davis sophomore keeper C.J. Stevens. In his first year on varsity, Stevens rose to the occasion with nine saves, while making some brilliant solo moves, leaping to punch away do-or-die shots from the Raiders.

  “The ball’s in the air,” Kidder said. “Those ones that you can only play perfect or the ball’s in the net and he made the play.”

  “I guess it just comes to me,” the quiet Stevens said.

  In the second period of overtime, Lopez quickly went to work on a breakout. Dribbling the ball down the left side, he drove in the score the game-winner seven seconds into the period. “He finally got into that one-on-one position,” Kidder said. “He can shoot and he can dribble and that’s what he needed in that position. He finally got isolated one-on-one and it was a footrace.”

  After that, Kidder said there was no stopping Lopez. “From there on, short of fouling him…and shoot, sometimes you can foul him and it doesn’t matter.”

  “One little mistake by us and they capitalize,” Thompson said. “That’s the difference. That’s how it’s going to be in these kind of games.”

  Lee-Davis will now look to avenge their only district loss when they host a rematch with Hanover on Friday night.

  For Atlee, their future success hinges on their ability to come together. “With all of the rain and the way this season has gone it’s been kind of disjointed,” Thompson said. “We just haven’t gelled yet, which could be good. Maybe we gel towards the end of the season or during the districts or regionals.”
 
Atlee .....................................1 0 0 0 — 1
Lee-Davis…..........................1 0 0 1 — 2
Atlee: Boothe
Lee-Davis: Thompson, Lopez
Saves: McCabe (A) 14, Stevens (L-D) 9
Records: Atlee 5-2 Capital, 5-3; Lee-Davis 4-1, 5-3-0