At the end of a long week of soccer, the Boyd-Buchanan high school players know they still aren’t where they want to be.
But they’re getting closer every game.
The Bucs won their third District 5-A/AA match of the week Saturday night, defeating Grace Academy 2-0 behind two goals from Will Boyanton.
After recording district wins against Sequoyah and McMinn Central earlier in the week, the Bucs now sit in first place at 4-0 in 5-A/AA.
“I thought we played well tonight,” Bucs coach Dustin Walker said. “I don’t think we did extremely well in the attacking third, but we did everything we could to put ourselves in positions to score. We just couldn’t finish tonight. But Grace played very well, too. They played hard for 80 minutes, and made it hard for us to score.”
Boyanton put the Bucs up 1-0 early on a ball from Hayes Wood, and he scored again in the opening minutes of the second period with an assist from John Beasley. The Bucs had a number of other dangerous scoring opportunities, but they either failed to connect, or were stopped by Grace keeper Austin Smith.
The Golden Eagles’ best scoring chance came on a ball that nearly got past a slipping Isaac Antwine, but the keeper recovered in time to make the grab. The Boyd-Buchanan defense limited Grace’s shots in recording its fourth consecutive shutout.
“They have some dangerous players, but I thought our defense did a great job, especially in possession,” Walker said. “We did a really good job winning balls out of the air. We were first to the majority of their clearances, punts and goal kicks.”
The win improves Boyd-Buchanan’s record to 7-1 overall to go along with a’ 4-0 5-A/AA mark. With just three district matches remaining, the Bucs are pleased to be in that position, but knowing those matches will come against Loudon, Silverdale and Arts & Sciences means there’s a lot of work left to be done.
“It’s such an even district, and anything can happen on any night, so anytime we can get a win, it’s very nice,” Walker said. “It’s great that we have all wins so far, but we just try to win the game in front of us. We’re not exactly where we want to be, and we have three really good district teams still left to play. So although it’s nice to have four wins right now, we still have a lot of tough games coming up.”
(E-mail Jaime Barrett at jaimenbarrett@gmail.com