Warrenton stopped multiple shot attempts from Wright City at the buzzer to beat their county rival Monday.
Warrenton beat Wright City 3-2 Monday in a county clash at Wright City High School. The Warriors avenged a loss to Wright City earlier in the season. Wright City beat Warrenton 3-1 at the Wright City soccer tournament last month.
After Wright City jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on Alejandro de La Torre Delgado’s goal, Warrenton tied the game on Hector Cortes’ penalty kick with under 18 minutes left in the first half. The game was tied 1-1 at halftime.
The Warriors scored two goals in the first 14 minutes of the second half. Santiago Cano scored the second goal on a free kick taken by senior Davin Cox to give the Warriors a 3-1 lead. Warrenton soccer coach John Schulte said it was nice to build a two goal lead.
“That way, if something happens or a fluke or they get something, we’ve still got that lead,” Schulte said. “We can still keep playing with the lead and be smart about what we’re doing. Definitely, having the two-goal lead was nice.”
De La Torre Delgado scored with under 22 minutes left to trim the Warrenton lead to 3-2. Wright City created multiple scoring chances to tie the game in the second half, including a chance at the buzzer.
“I absolutely loved seeing that,” Wright City soccer coach Josh Albregts said. “However it was too little, too late, and were not able to come all the way back. Everyone is entitled to have their bad days and this was ours.”
With about 10 seconds left in the game, Wright City was able to play a high ball in the box and get off multiple shot attempts to tie the game. Warrenton defenders scrambled back and stopped both shot attempts to preserve the win. Schulte said the Warriors misplayed the ball, letting it bounce and go over them. He believes they were too concerned with Wright City players running into the box and forgot to play the ball. However, they had defenders back to keep the ball out of the net in the closing seconds.
“It made it really exciting there the last 10 seconds with the scramble in the box and them getting two shots on goal,” Schulte said. “Us blocking it and deflecting it and knocking it out as they’re still trying to shoot and score as the buzzer goes off. So just one of those things. But we got back which is what we needed to do and we got people behind the ball so it made it really tough for them.”
Warrenton dropped a 2-1 decision to St. Charles West Tuesday. Wright City lost to Union 4-2 Tuesday.