HART — A penalty shot by Shelby senior Alex Dealmonte was the only goal by either side in Monday’s rivalry battle in Hart, and the Tigers came away with a hard-fought 1-0 victory, snapping a five-game losing skid.
The result was something of an echo of the teams’ first meeting nine days prior, when Hart defeated the Tigers by shootout after a scoreless regulation game.
“It was really nice to be on the winning end of the penalties this game,” Shelby coach Damian Gonzalez said. “Credit to Hart. It was a fun game to watch, back and forth. We knew that was going to be the case, so we knew we had to be ready to play. “
Indeed, the first half of the game especially was a closely contested battle in which neither team scored but both had chances. Not much of the game was played in the midfield, as each side played aggressively and attacked into the offensive third. Shelby’s Andrew Hayes came closest to finding the net, launching a free kick that narrowly missed going in, instead glancing off the top left corner of the goalposts.
Dealmonte’s penalty kick came under 10 minutes into the second half when Hart (4-12-1, 2-7 West Michigan Conference) was called for a handball just inside the box. The senior, recently named homecoming king, got another chance to celebrate when he fired a well-placed ball past Hart keeper Miguel Escamilla despite the latter guessing where Dealmonte would shoot the ball.
Hart did get one last great scoring chance, a corner kick in the final minutes, but Shelby keeper Oliver Gorton continued his impressive season by leaping up and punching the ball away before a Pirate could head it into the net.
“I don’t know who it was for them, but there was a kid right there to head the ball, so that was awesome,” Gonzalez said. “He’s been huge all season. He’s going to be a stud. In my opinion, he’s already a stud. It’s great knowing we’ll have a capable keeper. We have two capable keepers. Our backup on JV is pretty good, too.”
Gorton said he stayed locked in on the play, knowing the stakes.
“I was looking up and I could see the ball in the silhouette of the sky, and I was backpedaling,” Gorton said. “All I thought was, ‘I just have to do it because our team’s depending on me.’”
Hart's Kevin Hernandez tries to stop Shelby's Javier Cervantes from getting to the ball during Monday's WMC game at Hart. The Tigers won a close battle, 1-0.
Hart struggled to get as much offense going in the second half of the game. Gonzalez exhorted his Tigers to win more 50/50 balls at one point, and the message was taken to heart as Shelby (6-10-2, 2-6-1 WMC) indeed won more balls out of the air as the game went along.
“It’s conditioning, 100 percent,” Hart coach Jonah Kelley said of Shelby’s later success winning the ball. “We’ve been struggling with it all season. They definitely started to win a few at the end there.”
Kelley said his players had been improving of late at staying on their man and not merely sticking their feet out to try to snatch the ball, but he felt Monday was a step back in that department.
“We’ve got to build up our attack better,” Kelley said. “We’ve got to mark up and quit stabbing (at the ball). That’s something we’ve been working on a lot. It has gotten a little bit better recently. We’ve just got to finish our opportunities.”
Shelby hasn’t had a ton of success scoring goals this season, only going over two goals scored in a game twice since August. However, Gonzalez said he feels his team has done well in most other areas and just needs to improve in cashing in their chances.
“We played great today, but that’s how we’ve been playing all season,” Gonzalez said. “We just haven’t been able to put goals in the net, so I’m happy that we put one in the net. We were able to defend, and we finally got a win. I’ve felt like we deserved a lot more wins this year, but haven’t been able to capitalize.
“As long as we keep playing the way we’re capable of playing, I feel like we can do anything we want to do in our district. I really do.”
