Special to the Maroon Devils Network – The Maroon Devils Men’s Soccer Team hosted the Queen’s Grant Stallions on Wednesday night in the opening round of the State playoffs. Queen’s Grant is in one of the top conferences in the state which includes all Charter Schools around the Charlotte area. The Devils and Stallions would battle throughout the first half with both teams having opportunities to score, but neither team capitalizing on the opportunities.
In the second half, with 29 minutes left in the game, the Stallions would get the ball at midfield and out run three Devils in a foot race to get a one on one with the Devils keeper. The Stallion player would score the first goal of the game. With 3 minutes left in the game the Stallions would once again get the ball at midfield and would outrun the Devils once again down the field for their second goal of the game. With one minute and 10 seconds left on the clock the Stallions would commit a foul in the box. Junior João Segato would score the penalty kick for the Devils. The Devils would have one more opportunity off a corner kick, but just could not convert in the last 15 seconds. The Stallions would take the 2-1 win over the Devils. “We had to dig deep in this game for sure. Our players truly left it all on the field last night.” said Head Coach Scott Cline. “We just could not keep up with their speed.”
In the game on defense, Sophomores Levi and Lucas Trantham would lead the way with 8 clears/steals each, followed by Senior Aiden Pond, Senior Jonas Trejo and Sophomore Gavin Lanning each with 7. In goal Junior Noel Wolf had 13 saves. The player of the game for the Devils was Gavin Lanning. “Gavin did a great job attacking on offense and recovering on defense. We asked a lot of him and the whole team.” said Cline.