The Brownwood Lions snapped a four-match skid in District 4-4A soccer action Friday night, picking up a pivotal 1-0 victory over Graham at Gordon Wood Stadium to start the third and final round of league competition.
The Lions improved to 6-10-2 overall with the victory, but more importantly 3-4 in league action as they attempt to improve their postseason positioning with two regular season games remaining.
“It was massive and it started with the training sessions,” Lions first-year head coach Michael Westerman said of the victory. “I think we all had a bit of a reality check going on a four-game losing streak. It was pretty disappointing after starting 2-0 in district with our heads high and then hitting that rough patch where we were dealing with a couple of injuries and trying to figure some things out. We had to go back to the drawing board and rearrange some things. The majority of us are healthy right now but we knew what we needed to do, we knew what the task was. I was very pleased with the performance tonight.”
The shutout was the first in district action for the Lions after yielding 23 goals in the first five league outings.
“Our defense has been one of the things we’ve been struggling with as far as injuries and things,” Westerman said. “To be able to have our full back line, which is all seniors, goalie included, that was pretty significant in the sense of camaraderie and having boys that are used to playing with each other. Just being able to see a game like that is very pleasing.”
The Lions broke a scoreless tie with 7:32 left in the first half as Noah Barron scored on a header off a corner kick from Caleb Nelson.
“Noah Barron is a magician in the air,” Westerman said. “Surprisingly enough, coming into the season we were a fairly small team and we weren’t working on a whole lot of things in terms of dealing with the ball in the air. But we have a couple of athletes on the team and Noah is phenomenal at taking care of the ball in the air, and he did it again.”
With 5:47 left in the contest, Graham’s best opportunity to score was turned away by goalie Hunter Glass, who made a diving deflection to his right to keep the Steers off the board.
“Hunter was actually dealing with an illness on Tuesday and still isn’t 100 percent and we knew that coming into the game,” Westerman said. “But he buckled down and did what he had to do. He wasn’t too active the entire game, so to come up with an explosive save with that much on the line was crucial.”
The Lions are back in action at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 11 when they host Mineral Wells in the final home game of the regular season.
