Scoring success sends Panthers past Pymatuning Valley
Trending
BRISTOLVILLE -- A flurry of goals around the midway point of the first half helped push Bristol in a Northeastern Athletic Conference contest on Tuesday, topping Pymatuning Valley, 5-2.
After a pair of tough losses to even tougher teams, United and Kennedy, the Panthers have come out stronger.
"That's why we schedule those games to get ready for the rest of the season and get ready for the NAC," Bristol coach Cory Schrecengost said. "I honestly did that on purpose when I scheduled those because I knew they would be tough games and they'd get us ready. I just let the boys know that those two losses don't define our season. We have to grow from that, and we did learn a lot from those two games, and that's what we wanted out of it."
The Lakers struck first, with Cooper Paul connecting with the back of the net.
Bristol's response came nine minutes later and a couple times over.
Senior Gus Workman capitalized on a penalty kick to knot the game. Within a minute, that tie turned into an advantage for the Panthers as another senior, this time Ethan Kimak, beat out the goalie to give his team the edge.
Sixty-three seconds after the game was tied, Bristol (2-2, 1-0 NAC) held a 3-1 lead. Jake Clisby got the better of the Lakers' keeper, and then struck again at the 14-minute mark. The Panthers went into halftime with a comfortable advantage.
"We moved some people around, which we had worked on this week, so we just had short passes, and the defense played up a little bit further, which we were working on this week as well," Schrecengost said. "Everything just came together tonight."
Freshman Liam Beeman further broke the game open 10 minutes into the second half, taking advantage of a loose ball in front of the net.
Things mostly cooled off after that, with neither team capitalizing on their opportunities.
Pymatuning Valley tacked one on at the end, however, this time it was Ryan Beck. The Lakers closed the game strong and got rewarded on the scoresheet.
"I thought the last 10 minutes, my guys really showed up," Pymatuning Valley coach Tim Beck said. "Proud of them. I told them that in our (postgame) meeting that I was proud of the way they played, the way they didn't back down and that they just kept trying. That last 10 minutes of effort was great. I told them they need to do that in the first half, also."
The loss moves the Lakers to 1-1 on the season and 0-1 in league play.
The Panthers travel to Vienna on Thursday for another league game against Mathews.
"Hopefully this gets some goals under our belt, which we were having trouble doing, and that keeps us going with the lineup that we have," Schrecengost said. "We hope everything just keeps coming together."
Pymatuning Valley plays host to Lordstown on Thursday.