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DECATUR — Norwell Knights head coach Jeremy Steele and 10 senior players were hoping to keep their last soccer season going, but it came to a disappointing end Saturday night.
The Bellmont Braves shot down the Knights’ hopes 2-1 in a sudden death penalty kick shootout in the Bellmont IHSAA boys sectional championship match.
The Braves (9-5-2) advance to the Blackford Regional semi-finals on Wednesday at Hartford City and will play Muncie Central in the first of two matches.
After finishing the 80-minute match deadlocked at 1-1, the two teams played a 14-minute overtime period and the score remained tied.
Therefore, the match went into a shootout. In the shootout, each team selects five players to take a penalty kick against the respective goalkeeper.
In the shootout, each team successfully made four of five shots which forced a sudden death shootout.
Norwell’s Caleb McAfee and Bellmont’s Josh Brown each made his shot in sudden death.
Then, Bellmont goalkeeper Anthony Coleman stopped the next kick by Norwell’s Kory Faus. That brought up Bellmont’s Dan McGill for his kick and he beat Norwell goalkeeper Adam Harris with a low shot into the left corner.
“We were off to a great start there and we took it through the first five and it was just unfortunate that we just couldn’t finish it off,” said Steele, who is stepping down after his sixth season.
The Knights were looking for their eighth sectional title. Norwell finished with a 5-11-1 season record.
Bellmont had defeated Norwell earlier in the season in a shootout and last year knocked Norwell out in the first round by a 3-2 shootout.
After a scoreless first half, Bellmont broke the silence with a goal by Eddie Tamariz at the 54:36 mark. He took a pass off his chest and booted the shot into the back of the net.
At the 72:20 mark Norwell tied the match with a goal by Blair Williams on a pass from Tyler Van Meter.
“I was proud of the boys for not giving up,” said Steele. “It would have been easy for them to drop their heads and consider it done after our earlier loss to them. But they didn’t do that this time, they kept fighting and they were rewarded.”
Sam Meyer, Austin Alanis, Corey Shaffer and Ethan Brege scored the penalty kicks for the Braves in the first shootout. Tamariz’s shot glanced off the crossbar.
Zach Pearson, Ethan Reed, Austin Morris and Harris were successful for the Knights. A shot by Williams was high over the goal.
Seeing their last action for the Knights were seniors Van Meter, Williams, Pearson, Morris, Faus, Hartman, Nathan Hartman, Craig Wolfe, Bill Denney and Talal Maree.
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