Jay tops NC (08/27/2008)

The Patriots could've taken some better shots. They could've blown out New Castle.

But the most important thing is they are 2-0 for the first time under coach Alan Bailey.

Jay County High School controlled the action Tuesday night, defeating the visiting Trojans 3-0 and setting the stage for what Bailey hopes are great things to come.

"I told the kids what we were capable of," said Bailey, who has said this is the most talented team he has had since taking over the program in 2001. "Anything is possible now. We won two tough games right off the bat."

The Patriots racked up more than twice as many shots as New Castle, but the real story was on the other half of the field. The Trojans just couldn't get there, legally.

Using an trap, Jay County repeatedly earned offsides calls to halt Trojans runs and keep the ball on its half of the field.

"And we didn't even have Joe (Rasmussen, a foreign exchange student from Denmark) back to run it today," said Bailey, who moved Rasmussen up and used a 4-4-2 against New Castle. "(Jordan) Moser pretty much had it set up. He timed his runs right. He just had them. That's something we haven't had in a long, long, long time."

Trojan coach Jacob White said the constant offsides calls served to frustrate his young squad.

"It made them seem like they had eight defenders in stead of four," he said. "I think we just played to their strength.

"I think we really tried to complicate things. You've just got to give them credit."

New Castle (3-2) got a couple of good scoring opportunities from senior Andrew Miller in the first 20 minutes, but at about the mid-point of the opening half the Patriots took control for good.

Jay County started dominating play, just missing on a couple of opportunities before getting on the board with 9:18 left in the opening half.

The goal came when Joe Rasmussen pushed the ball up the middle to Brad Horn, who cruised past a Trojan defender for a one-on-one opportunity against goalie Laith Denny.

Denny was able to come out and deflect Horn's shot, but that left the net open as freshman Aldo Castro knocked the ball in for his first career goal.

The Patriots struck again just before the half when Rasmussen fed the ball to Isaac Poole. The senior was open just beyond the 6-yard line and hammered home his second goal of the season.

New Castle seemed to have a goal when Nahum Cuautle put the ball in the net with a header 11:50 into the second half, but the goal was waived off because of a goalie interference call.

Patrick Johnson added the third Jay County goal with 50.5 seconds left in the game.

"It very easily could have been a lot more," said Bailey, whose team took 21 shots, nine of which were on goal. "We missed a lot of opportunities. We definitely took it to them.

"It was a just a good team effort tonight. We passed the ball well in the second half."

Poole led the Patriots with four shots on goal, and Castro added two. Adam Daniels fended off all six shots against him.

Junior varsity

Jay County rolled to a 7-1 victory over the Trojans.

The Hong brothers powered the Patriots with Hai Hong scoring three times and Heng Hong adding a pair of goals. Carlos Equivel and Taylor Fisher each scored once.[[In-content Ad]]