HART — Hart had a few chances, but couldn't apply sustained pressure on Whitehall for much of Wednesday's West Michigan Conference game, and that led to a 2-0 defeat.
The Pirates (1-4-1, 1-2 WMC) played Whitehall to a standstill on the scoreboard the first 30 minutes, but it was the Vikings who had more scoring chances, and eventually they were able to cash one in late in the first half. The fact that it was an unlikely goal - Ryan Bowen managed to fire one in from a tough angle - was cold comfort.
"It just comes down to conditioning and not being
able to sustain that," Hart coach Jonah Kelley said. "We had some really good runs for the first five or
six minutes of the game, and then we just fell off a cliff. We can't be
putting our heads down and walking back. We've got to go win the ball
back and be more competitive.
"It was definitely a kick in the gut. We weren't getting a lot of pressure, so we had to keep
the scoreboard clean if we wanted the chance to stay in this, and we
didn't do that."
Hart didn't have much more luck in the second half. While there were a couple of runs at the net, the ball control simply wasn't there the way it needed to be. It likely didn't help that Whitehall had two veteran seniors playing on the back end of its defense.
The second goal of the game came off a transition opportunity when Hart was unable to get the ball into the final 20 yards of the Whitehall end for a shot. Quickly, the Vikings fed leading scorer Carter Burrous, who beat keeper Miguel Escamilla for a goal.
The result was unfortunate for Escamilla, who played a strong game, often making aggressive plays on the ball to keep Whitehall from getting a clear shot at the net. Twice he seized the ball out of the air to prevent a header that might have gone in.
"He's been doing that all year," Kelley said of his keeper. "He's been
playing out of his mind all season. We've got to do something
to free him up a little bit more. You don't want your goalie touching the
ball as much as he has been."
The Pirates have only one WMC opponent in the next week - Manistee - and two non-league games. That creates a lot of opportunity for growth, and for practicing what Kelley is preaching about resilience, a quality that up to Wednesday he felt his team was exhibiting quite well.
"We've been taking some steps in the right direction for the last
few weeks," Kelley said. "We took a step backwards today. We definitely don't want to go into practice tomorrow saying
we haven't been doing some things right, because we definitely
have, but we've got to get the train going in the right
direction."
