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Asheville blanks SM in first league game
Asheville scored all its goals in the first half as the perennial powerful Cougars blanked Smoky Mountain 3-0 on Aug. 25 in the Mountain Athletic Conference soccer opener at Asheville.
“We played hard,” Coach Dolphus Brown said. “We challenged them no matter what the score that we were going to go for 80 minutes as hard as we could. That effort is something we can build on.”
The Cougars dominated in shots 26-4. Bryan Newbold made 15 saves for the Mustangs, and Asheville’s Renato Corte had three.
Smoky Mountain’s Aaron Whatley kicks the ball down field in last week’s 3-0 loss to Asheville. – Herald photo by Carey Phillips
Asheville’s first goal came at the 13:11 mark when Indy Smith connected off an assist from Scott Szymanski.
“It was a nice give and go,” Brown said. “Smith made a nice pass to Szymanski. He one-touched it back to Smith, who broke past our defender and scored.”
The Cougars went up 2-0 on Tim Snedeker’s goal with an assist from Thomas Righi at the 23:05 mark.
“He dribbled it several times into the box before he shot it to the far post,” the coach said.
Szymanski’s goal with an assist from Smith concluded the scoring at the 32:41 mark.
“The ball ricocheted off somebody into the goal,” Brown said. “We felt we had it defended real well, but it just hit off one of our guys and into the net.”
The Mustang JVs dropped a 2-1 decision. David Cheatham had SM’s lone goal.
“Playing Asheville so close wasn’t a fluke,” Brown said. “We had a lot of opportunities but couldn’t cash in.”
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