Worland doubles down against Dogies

The Newcastle High School men’s soccer team made the trek over the mountain to face off against the No. 1-ranked Worland Warriors Friday in their last road trip of the season. Head coach Sally Hoover’s crew went in with a plan to try to slow down the talented Warrior squad, however once again Worland found a way to cruise to another victory, defeating Newcastle 6-0. 
 
“They made some changes and used a little bit different formation to move the ball through the middle, but they were still just spot on. Every touch gets to their feet, their passes get to their people, and they don’t make a lot of mistakes,” Hoover described. “Unfortunately, when we made a mistake, they were very quick to capitalize on that.”
 
The Dogies held them scoreless for the first 15 minutes of the contest due to going in with a very defensive mind-set to hold them to fewer goals. From about the half to Newcastle’s 18 was where most of the play occurred in the first half.
 
Worland scored in the 15th minute by successfully executing a through ball, which they were able to put into the back of the net. Then, with 15 minutes remaining in the half, the Warriors shot a corner kick over the front side Dogie defense where an open player on the backside tapped it in to take the 2-0 lead going into the break.
 
“We just didn’t have anyone covering that player,” Hoover admitted. “Will [Beastrom] went for it, and he said he felt it brush the top of his arm, so he almost blocked that one.”
 
Hoover went on to note that the Dogies battled hard and played pretty well. They were in the right spots, and doing what they needed to do, but were playing very defensively, which cut down their offensive attack opportunities.
 
In the second half, the Warriors opened up a scoring frenzy just five minutes after resuming play. 
 
Their third goal was the result of another corner kick opportunity, their fourth came a minute later as they took advantage of the Dogie defense being on their heels on a through ball, then seven minutes later they struck once again to extend their lead to 5-0.
 
With 20 minutes to play, the Warriors scored their final goal for the 6-0 win.
 
“Usually we are a better second half team, than we are a first half team,” Hoover said. “But once they scored their first goal in the second half, they kind of opened up the floodgates and took it to us.”
 
In the remaining 20 minutes of the contest, the Dogies were able to hold the Warriors out of the goal, but despite ramping up their offensive game in the last 10 minutes of play, Newcastle was unable to get on the board.
 
“We made the decision at half-time to play defensively until the last 10 minutes, and then just see what happens,” Hoover said. “But then, the guys were tired and it had been a battle, but we did get a couple of shots on goal.”
 
Finn Gerlag and Sam Cunningham were each able to get off a shot on goal, while Dylan McFarlin took a penalty kick, which was just slightly too high and hit the crossbar. 
 
Beastrom ended the contest with 10 saves while Skyler Cummings had four.
 
“There really weren’t all that many shots in the game,” Hoover said. “Our middle did a good job of keeping them much more contained than we did the first time we played them, so that was good to see.”
 
This week, the Dogies are at home as they host Torrington on Thursday and Rawlins on Saturday, which is also the senior recognition contest.