All season it seemed that the Crestwood Red Devils boys’ soccer team has been pushed to the brink but have usually prevailed. The Red Devils finally hit a wall and saw their season come to an end when they were defeated by Open Door Christian 5-0 in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division V Northeast 5 district championship last Saturday evening at Cardinal Stadium’s Bob Dove Field in Youngstown.
“We did run out of steam,” said Coach Eric Sway. “We had an unfortunate series of events to start the game. Unfresh legs caught up to us unfortunately from the battle less than 48 hours earlier.”
For only the second time in program history, Crestwood (12-7-1, 1-2-1) qualified for the district final after surviving a thrilling semifinal match against Lake Ridge Academy, prevailing in a penalty kick shootout. It took 110 minutes of scoreless soccer for the Red Devils to claim victory and the third-year coach acknowledged it came at a price.
“It was apparent,” he added. “Some of the boys were just laboring and looking tired and it caught up to them.”
In addition to still feeling fatigued, Sway said that Crestwood started the match on the wrong foot when senior striker Elijah Jurisch was issued a yellow card inside the fifth minute of play. Although it was only Jurisch’s first yellow card, it put him on guard throughout the rest of the match.
According to Sway, Crestwood’s leading scorer played cautiously rather than his usual aggressive style of play. Things went from bad to worse for the Red Devils when ODC earned a penalty kick at the 10th minute of regulation and freshman striker Ty Hurd converted the kick, pushing the Patriots ahead 1-0.
Sway noted that his team’s defensive strategy hinged on marking Hurd for majority of the match and also moving up on defense to cover sophomore midfielder Liam Bores when he approached Crestwood’s defensive third, but the ODC duo wreaked havoc on the Red Devils’ defensive throughout the entire match.
After the Patriots increased their lead to 2-0, Hurd struck again delivering his second goal of the match at the 27th minute of play, stretching the Patriots’ advantage to 3-0.
“We wanted to keep our wings high and midfielders high and the boys reverted back to sitting back and trying to defend and just defend, defend and defend which is eventually going to catch up to them,” Sway said.
ODC put the finishing touches on the match when Hurd recorded his third goal of the game inside the 42nd minute of play, extending the lead to 4-0 and the Red Devils could not offer any sort of response.
“They beat us to the ball the majority of the time,” Sway said. “After the first 15-20 minutes of the game, it seemed they won the majority of the 50-50s, and they got to the ball first and we just stopped stepping into balls and let them move the ball.”
Sway acknowledged that it was a bitter way for Crestwood’s season to end but emphasized everything Crestwood accomplished this year. For the third straight season, the Red Devils recorded double-digit victories, earned their third straight sectional championship, and snagged a district semifinal victory for only the second time in school history.
“Regardless of the end we were so proud of those guys,” noted Sway. “We set team goals every year, our goals this year were to just to get 10 wins, getting double-digit wins has been our goal for three years, well it was not even year one when I started. I did not even think we would win five games, we had 12 kids and we won 11 games that year, we won 11 games last year and won 12 games this year. Those were the goals. We had our ups and downs and then went on a nice run at the end of the season.”
Graduating seniors Jurisch, central defensive midfielder Cooper Pausch, left back Drew Pfost, and center back Sam Wright, leave the program better than they found it by helping spark a resurgence beginning in their sophomore years, when they joined a team with only 12 players and still helped the team to record 34 victories in that span.
“I got those boys three years ago and had them play soccer a completely different way than they were ever taught, learned or trained,” Sway said. “I had no choice. They were sophomores and had to play 80 minutes a game and they could not get injured and had to play injured and we set the tone that year.”
