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Sophomore Addison Ernst takes control of the ball during second half
action of the Greenville soccer game with
Xenia Tuesday. Greenville
fell to 4-2 overall, dropping a 2-0 decision to Xenia. CNO Photos by
George Starks
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Winning streak ends
Wave falls to
Xenia in soccer
By George Starks
GREENVILLE- “These kids are fast. This will be a good test for us.”
Those were the words of Greenville boys soccer coach Mark Coppess
Tuesday before the start of the game between the Wave and Xenia.
After falling in the season opener to Newton, the Wave had reeled off
four straight wins with the most recent coming over West Carrolton.
In that game, senior forward Folger Pyles had scored a hat trick for
Greenville, helping to secure the victory.
Tuesday, the Wave looked to make it five straight but Xenia had other
ideas.
With two first half goals, the Buccaneers posted a 2-0 win, stopping
the Wave winning streak.
Playing with little fire in their bellies, the Wave had no answer for
the Xenia offense and had very little aggression of their own on the
offensive end.
Xenia scored the winning goal with 25:30 left in the opening half as
Joe Cloud got the ball past senior goalie AJ Frens.
The second goal came at the 21:18 mark off the foot of Cameron Atkinson
as that would be all of the scoring on this night.
Greenville played like a winning team in the second half but would
never see a score as the Wave had their chances.
“If we would have played in the first half the way we did in the second
half, this would not have been a 2-0 loss,” said Coppess. “We spent the
first 40 minutes getting ready to play so this is a good lesson to
learn. You have to start from the first whistle. We need to learn from
it and move on.”
It was a total disappointment on the part of Coppess but not how one
might think.
“It wasn’t the fact that they scored two goals on us but how they done
it,” admitted Coppess. “We were very soft defending and allowing the
long ball to be played through. We allowed the crosses to come into our
box unmarked is very frustrating. They know better than that and
obviously, the second half proved this. We had no aggression. It was
non-existent in the first half. ”
In the second 40 minutes, the Wave played like a 4-1 team would
normally play.
Greenville was able to get back on defense and when Xenia was attacking
the goal, the sweepers were there to give Frens the help that was
needed.
“We played with fire and we were very aggressive in that second half,”
said Coppess. “We had good open shots at the goal and we were attacking
like we should. We had our chances but we couldn’t convert on them.
We’ve struggled with capitalizing on our opportunities and tonightwas
no different. It’s something we’ve got to keep working on.”
With the four game winning streak snapped, Greenville will look to get
its ship in the right direction and that will start Saturday as the
Wave will host Springfield Shawnee at 1 p.m.
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Wave
senior, Folger Pyles (7), fights for possession of the ball with a
Xenia defender
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