Overtime Goal Gives McDonogh 1-0 Soccer Win Over Gilman

After a back-and-forth first half where neither team mounted much of a scoring threat, the McDonogh Eagles pestered the Gilman net in the second half, only to be thwarted time and again by Greyhound High School All-American keeper Andrew Harris.

Then, less than two-and-a-half minutes into the first overtime, the Eagles’ Matt Linardi took a feed from Mike Gamble and put it past Harris on a two-on-one opportunity to give McDonogh a 1-0 win in the match played at Gilman on Friday.

“We didn’t have a guy covering the back post, so the ball they slotted was free for two of them to finish,” Harris said of the winning goal.  “When they can create chances like that, they deserve to win.”

The goal not only ended the scoring drought for the day, it ended more than 240 minutes of shut-out soccer posted by Gilman against its arch-rival in action going back to the championship game last season and including a nil-nil match this year at McDonogh on Sept. 12.

And most all of that is attributed to the Gilman defense, especially the stellar play in goal by Greyhound keeper Harris.

The top of the highlight reel came just eight minutes into the second half when he rejected three McDonogh shots in the space of about 15 seconds, the last effort a solid punch which ejected the ball out of play to his right.

Then, five minutes later, as the ball dangerously crossed the goal mouth, Harris executed a nifty maneuver to not only prevent an Eagle shot, but also managed to control the ball when it looked like it was ready to roll over the end line.  The deft play not only saved a goal, it prevented an equally dangerous corner kick opportunity.

Twelve minutes later on yet another McDonogh second-half run, Harris charged a ball to his right and deflected it away from his opponent, effectively sealing another excellent scoring opportunity for the Eagles.

And those are only some of the plays where he physically touched the ball.

On one Linardi chance at about the 20 minute mark in the second half, Eagle coach Steve Nichols noted that Harris spread out and forced a shot wide left.

“He made himself big,” Nichols said.  “Matt had to try to go wide and he missed the frame.”

Nichols also said that Harris’s reputation in goal may have created a mental block for some of his players, including a missed opportunity by the Eagles’ Malcolm Harris.

“Malcolm is one of the best players in the game,” he said.  “For Malcolm to miss, Andrew is in his head – there’s no doubt about it.”

For the Gilman keeper, it is all about giving his team a chance.

“All I can really do is try and keep the guys in the game,” Andrew Harris said.  “Let them (the Gilman offense) try to score the goals and I’ll try to keep them (the opposition) out.”

As for the back-to-back-to-back saves, Harris said he probably should have caught the first ball.

“I just had to recover for the second two,” he said.  “I look to my guys to play like that; they play with their heart all of the time – we as a team are very competitive like that.”

Greyhound coach Jon Seal noted that McDonogh created four or five legitimate scoring opportunities during the second half of the match.

“They overloaded one side of the field, broke us down and turned the corner on us,” Seal said.

“We didn’t do enough in the run of play to create anything, and that was disappointing because that is not what we wanted to do,” he said.  “This is the way the game played out and you have to give them credit.”

Yet, though the team needs to continue to improve, Seal said he was proud of the Greyhound effort and that it is not a time for the players to hang their heads.

“We put ourselves in a spot where we need to start going on the road and get a win – focus on the next game and that’s Calvert Hall” (next Wednesday, Oct. 12.)

Seal said as the season moves forward, McDonogh is as dangerous as any A conference team in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association.

“They are a very, very talented team,” he said.  “If we see them again, we’re going to have to play better to beat them.”

McDonogh improved its record to 6-1-1 in conference, 8-1-1 overall.  Gilman dropped to 5-2-1 in conference and 10-2-1 overall.