Boys soccer: Bartow shuts out Kathleen in 6A-6; Winter Haven, Auburndale win
BARTOW ― There was just too much Bartow Yellow Jacket talent and defense for the Kathleen Red Devils Thursday night at Bartow Memorial Stadium in the Class 6A District 6 quarterfinals.
No. 4 seed Bartow (6-4-1) trounced No. 5 seed Kathleen (3-10) by a score of 8-0 with more than eight minutes remaining due to a blowout rule. The Yellow Jackets will now take on the No. 1 seed Monday at Lake Gibson (12-5), which had a bye. Lake Gibson is also the same team that eliminated Bartow last year in the playoffs.
Goal scorers included Luis Perez-Duarte, Chance Campbell, Kevin Rivera-Franco, Nathan Saint Simon, Seth Adkins, Joseangel Morales and Sebastian Brock, who had two goals.
It was a spectacular win for Bartow in the playoffs in the first round of districts. But normally Bartow has a first-round bye, which this year is held by Lake Gibson. Still, Bartow head coach Richard Saunders was impressed by the shutout.
“I think we did well. I think we’re going to have to do a whole lot better if we are going to advance out of our next game, so we’re definitely going to have to pick the intensity level up,” Saunders said. “I think things just worked out well for us in this game.”
It worked out well because Bartow’s defense communicated and often defused potential threats.
And the midfield did an exceptional job of controlling the field, not getting too far up or too far back. Midfielder Luis Cortez-Ovando led that strategy.
“I always just slow down the game …, so I was just holding the ball and looking for passes on the outside — just slowing down the game,” Cortez-Ovando said. “We saw the long ball wasn’t working, so we start possessing it more. We possessed through the middle. And we used the middle, the outside mids and all that stuff."
Controlling the middle set players up such as Campbell, the striker, who scored after 16:05 of the first half. It was Campbell’s 15th goal of the season.
“Our center back drove down the line, and it attracted most of the center backs and outside backs. And he just put a beautiful ball, a curl, and it just skipped right over the fence and I knew where to put it,” Campbell said.
Midfielder Kevin Rivera-Franco scored after 18:54 in the second half, his first goal of his senior season.
“I seen the runner running across, and got leg enough to skip under the goalkeeper’s mistake,” Rivera-Franco said.
7A-6: Winter Haven 4, Durant 3
Highlights: Winter Haven, trailing 1-0 at halftime, scored three times in the second half to end regulation tied with Durant. The Blue Devils then won the shootout 4-3.
Including the shootout, Anthony Castro scored twice, and MacAllister Kranzler Ratcliffe, Ethan Cajuste, Jonathan Lamonica, Shelmy Moragene and Trystan Johnson-Hines each scored one goal for the Blue Devils. Ratcliffe and Cajuste each picked up an assist.
Winter Haven advanced to the semifinals with the victory and will play at Newsome on Tuesday.
In the other first-round games in 7A-6, Plant City defeated Haines City 8-0. Ridge Community defeated Strawberry Crest on penalty kicks. The game ended in a scoreless tie, and Ridge prevailed 7-6 on penalty kicks.
Ridge will play at Plant City in the semifinals on Tuesday.
— Roy Fuoco/The Ledger
5A-6: Auburndale 6, Liberty 0
Zach Mulling scored in the seventh minute and the Bloodhounds went on to score three more in the first half to take a 4-0 lead. Auburndale added two goals in the second half to complete the shutout. Auburndale will play Gateway at 6 p.m. on Monday at Horizon High School.
In the other 5A-6 match, Lake Buena Vista shut out Lake Wales, 4-0.
— Roy Fuoco/The Ledger
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Boys soccer: Bartow shuts out Kathleen in 6A-6; Winter Haven, Auburndale win
