Late goal sinks Jay Co. boys

All it takes sometimes is an unlucky bounce.

The Patriots were called for a handball inside their 18-yard box with 74 seconds to play and Elvin Morales buried the ensuing penalty kick as the Jay County High School boys soccer team dropped its season opener 2-1 to sectional rival Muncie Central on Tuesday.

“Other than that first goal today I thought we controlled the whole game,” said JCHS coach Brad Horn. “They just finished on a couple opportunities when they had the chance.

“We didn’t finish as well.”

Muncie Central (1-0) was pressuring late in the contest with a flurry of kicks toward JCHS goalkeeper Ian Ruiz inside the penalty area. After a number of failed attempts to clear the ball, a Bearcat payer sent another shot toward Ruiz, and it deflected off the upper arm of a Patriot defender.

Bearcat junior Elvin Morales went low left on his PK attempt, and Ruiz had no play on the ball.

“There was no question when I looked around (to find a shooter), Elvin had all the confidence in the world in wanting to take the shot and his teammates looked at him right away and passed it off to him,” Muncie Central coach Shea Hill said.

The late goal deflated any energy the Patriots (0-1) may have had in hopes of breaking what had been a 1-1 tie, and with few seconds remaining they weren’t able to tie the score again.

Jay County controlled the final 20 minutes of the opening half and could have been ahead 2-0 at intermission if not for consecutive stops from Bearcat goalkeeper Chase Beck.

Patriot junior forward Gio Perod was 15 yards away from the goal when he fired a shot that Beck turned away in the 21st minute, and moments later Perod had a shot from closer. Again, Beck thwarted the chance.

“He had massive saves today,” Hill said. “Chase was called upon … you’ve got to show up when you need to show up.”

Beck finished with 15 saves.

Muncie Central came out as the aggressor early in the second half and broke the scoreless tie.

David Voss, one of just four Bearcat seniors on a team that has nine freshmen, stole the ball deep in the offensive zone, split three Patriot defenders and went lower left past Ruiz for the team’s first goal of the season in the 49th minute.

“I think we just came out flat,” Horn said of his team’s second-half start. “We weren’t moving well. We looked tired.

“This group is going to have to play through that. It will help them toward the end of the season, but you can see right now how sluggish we were.”

Jay County found a bit of a second wind following Voss’s goal. Just 10 minutes later, Cristian Marentes, the Patriots’ junior midfielder, had some space about 30 yards away from the goal and sent a booming right-footed shot to the top right corner past the outstretched arms of Beck for the game-tying goal.

“That was just him creating that,” Horn said. Jayden Maymi was credited with an assist on the play. “There as nothing else there. He had an open area and took a beautiful shot.”