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Facing a team ranked No. 10 in Class 4A Region I in the TASCO preseason rankings, the Brownwood Lions jumped out to early lead but were unable to keep their District 5-4A record untarnished as the Salado Eagles rallied for a 2-1 victory Tuesday night at Gordon Wood Stadium.
“I was very impressed,” Lions second-year head coach Michael Westerman said of his team’s performance. “We knew we were going against some top competition in 4A for Texas. We’ve been excited and motivated all week. It’s been a game that we’ve been targeting so I’m very impressed by the way we played tonight.”
The Lions (6-8-1, 2-1) grabbed a 1-0 lead 9:45 into the contest when Noah Barron emerged from a one-on-one battle and fired a sliding shot toward the goal, which deflected off the upright and down into the goal to stake Brownwood to a 1-0 lead.
“There’s a lot of things we worked out, attacking in general, but we watched film and studied Salado to find out where their gaps and how that matches up with our attackers,” Westerman said. “We did exactly what we needed to do, we need a little more out of our midfield, but our strikers were excellent.”
The Lions maintained their lead until the 15:07 mark of the first half, when a Brownwood defender was called for undercutting a Salado (8-2-3, 3-0) player in the box, which led to a penalty kick. Thaddeus Heckman converted for the Eagles, knotting the score at 1 each.
Then, with 18:28 left in the contest, Heckman again found the net from 15 yards away, firing a point block shot that spun off goal keeper Wyatt Jackson’s hands and into the net for the decisive goal. Jackson had recorded near double-digit saves prior to Salado sneaking past the go-ahead attempt.
“Our defense played phenomenal,” Westerman said. “It was unfortunate and we’ll have to come back and see what the PK call was, we were a little unclear on that and we were unlucky, but that’s part of the game. The second goal was just a mistake, we put the opponent in a hard position to score, he hit it right at us and we just unlucky.”
The Lions’ final gasp to tie the game came with 1:05 left as Jakson Yoder fired a shot across the field from the 25-yard line, which rattled the left upright but deflected directly back into the field of play and was cleared by Salado.
Brownwood is back in action at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Stephenville, the preseason No. 1 team from Class 4A Region I according, according to TASCO.
The Lady Lions’ district game at Salado Tuesday night was pushed back to Wednesday at 7 p.m. due to thunderstorms in the area.
