The Hobbton Wildcats and the Union Spartans met on the soccer pitch Monday afternoon for an in-county rivalry match. After a first half scare, with Union taking a 3-2 lead into the half, the Wildcats settled down, scoring two more goals in the second half for a 4-3 win.
Getting goals for the Wildcats were Jared Sanchez with two, Francisco Garcia and Alberto Caamano with one each. Sanchez and Erick Soza were credited with assists.
“We tried to go through the motions tonight,” commented Hobbton coach Jonathan Jacobs. “We took an early 2-0 lead and thought we had won already; but, got smacked in the mouth when Union scored three unanswered goals in the first half. They took that lead into half and I told the boys it wasn’t acceptable to play like that. We can’t win the match until the match is over and that was our problem.
“We thought we had everything in the bag after going up so early. We came out in the second half and put the pressure on them,” he continued. “After the halfway point of the half we scored and a few minutes later we took the lead and never gave it back. Union was really good tonight. You can tell they wanted it and were playing with everything they had. I’m just hoping we are going to use this as a wakeup call. We are not a finished product, we’ve got to keep working.”
On the other side, Union coach David Ameen commented about the rivalry.
“You got to love these in-county rivalries. I felt good with where we were at coming into the game tonight. We worked on some things at practice that we knew we’d encounter against Hobbton, and for the most part it paid off. When we took the lead before halftime we felt good, but we knew the second half would be a battle.”
He stepped praised on the Wildcats.
“Hobbton is really well coached and has a ton of talent,” said Ameen. “Coach Jacobs and his guys were able to make some adjustments at halftime and coming down the stretch I think that made the difference. To compete as well as we did against a team of Hobbton’s caliber, we consider this a moral victory if there ever was such a thing. I’m proud of my guys and the effort they put forth tonight. If we play the way we did tonight for the rest of the season, who knows what could happen.”
With the win, the Wildcats are now 15-1-1 overall and 8-0 in the Carolina 1A Conference. They were set to be back in action on Wednesday at Princeton.
For Union, they are now 3-10 overall and 2-6 in the conference. They were back in action on Wednesday as well, taking on Rosewood.
