4/9/08
No. 1 Red Raiders turn back Devildogs
http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080408/PREPSPORTS/804080349Bob Castello, Greenville News
Greenville High's boys soccer team entered Monday night's match with the burden of the state's No. 1 ranking in Class AAA.
Then Travelers Rest put a little more pressure on the Red Raiders before falling 5-2 in a Western AAA Region game at Sirrine Stadium.
"It adds a little pressure," Greenville coach Kevin Traynor said of the No. 1 ranking. "It's a good compliment. I don't know if we really deserve it right now, but the guys are definitely coming in here with it on their minds."
The Raiders (13-2, 8-0) took the lead on first-half goals by Michael Padgett and Gregory Sanders. When Saul Escalona split a pair of defenders and scored eight minutes into the second half, Greenville led 3-0.
But Allan Turner put TR (7-5, 5-3) on the board, and James Restrepo added a breakaway goal in the 69th minute to pull the Devildogs within one.
Manning Rushton's goal with a little more than two minutes remaining gave the Raiders a cushion, and then Rushton blasted a shot from about 35 yards out that made it 5-2.
"A lot of teams that get down 3-0 to the number one team in the state might give up, but we didn't, and I'm very proud of that," TR coach Chris McCarrell said.
In the girls game, Ali Lewis scored one goal and assisted on another as Greenville rolled to a 3-0 victory. The eighth-ranked Red Raiders (9-2, 8-0) maintained sole possession of first place in the Western AAA Region.
Emilie Tollison's header, with an assist from Jacquelyn Muse, provided the only goal of the first half. Lewis scored in the 43rd minute and then assisted on Reed Few's goal that gave the Raiders a 3-0 lead in the 64th minute.
"Every time we've played them the last three years it went into penalty kicks," said Tollison, a senior midfielder. "We were like, 'We're gonna make history today. We're not gonna go into PKs.' "
TR (6-6, 4-4) beat Greenville on penalty kicks in the teams' first meeting this season.
"In the first game we were so inexperienced in the back, and we made a lot of mistakes in the back," Greenville coach Raimond Hartmann said. "We changed the system a little bit, and we play Olivia (Francis) as a sweeper, and that makes a big difference."