Spartan Boys Soccer Team Shuts Out Hornets

The West Springfield Spartans (14-1-3) hosted the Herndon Hornets (14-2-1) in the Northern Regional quarterfinal match Friday night. Fortunately, the Spartans held a 1-0 lead as Wais Ansary scored from 25 yards out two minutes before the match was stopped for morethan an hour due to thunderstorms.

“As soon as I got the ball in space, I knew to hit it,” Ansary said, “If you have a touch like that you might as well hit it.

Play resumed after a 90 minute delay and the Hornets battled with fire in an attempt to even the match, but could not find the net and West Springfield would end Herndon’s dynamic, record setting season to become only the second team to defeat ‘The Swarm’ this year, 1-0. 

West Springfield picked its game up where it left off during the storm to control possession and speed of the competition. Patric Burns, Ansary and Jannik Eckenrode built a virtual wall at midfield to stop the Hornets from successfully lobbing air balls to Patrick McLaughlin and EK Korvah who stayed on the attack but came just short of scoring on four or five occasions.

“We just came out knowing we had to play our game and keep going,” Burns said. “We have great team work and great chemistry. We’re excited to go to the next round and keep going.”

 At least two Hornets received yellow cards and the keeper was given a red card when he touched the ball with his hands outside of the 18-yard-box during a miscommunication with one of his defensive men. Sophomore Kurt Meyers stepped into goal for the Hornets, who were forced to play a man down in the field for the majority of the match due to the infraction.

The Spartan strategy worked as planned with timing and accuracy near midfield becoming the key to both winning and losing the game for each team. Ansary received a perfect pass and took two quick touches and launched it from 25 yards into the upper-right-90 to give West Springfield the lead with 27:38 still left in the first.

On the contrary, Herndon misfired several five to 10 yard passes near center-mid, which led to Spartan turnovers and control of the game’s tempo. The Hornet defense stood stout but McLaughlin said the offensive rhythm was missing and he added that next year will be even better for Herndon.

“Every time we play in rain we are a touch off, just one little inch away and we should have got a goal tonight, The [rain] just speeds the ball up a bit,” McLaughlin said. “All I will say is ‘big things’ for next year. Me and EK will be coming back and it’s our last season of high school soccer and we’re going for it all.”

West Springfield advances to the semifinals against Langley and the record setting season comes to an end for Herndon. Spartan Coach Andy Saffron said although it is tough to play a team you do not know well, his team managed to figure out how to expose its weakness.

“After that first 15 minutes when we scored, the objective was to keep dictating the tempo from the center-mids,” Spartan Coach Andy Saffron said. “I think what’s unique about our team is that we had given up goals this season but our kids bounce right back, have a lot of fight in them and they just go out and compete.”

West Springfield plays at Robinson against Langley on June 1 - Time TBA.