JCHS Soccer Ranks Top 10 in State
By ASHLEY CLEGG
The Jasper County Boys Soccer team has proved they are extremely successful on the home field, now winning every game at home albeit their game against Lamar a few weeks back.
These wins have put the team in 11th place out of 64 Division I schools. When you remove the private schools from the brackets, Jasper is currently in the top 10 for public schools. This is thanks to their 3-win region game winning streak they’ve had, first against Utopian Academy for the Arts with a 7-0 win on the road, followed by a 6-3 win against Towers High School at home, and most recently a 4-0 win against Putnam County which broke the 0-9 losing record they were cursed with ever since first playing Putnam in 2015.
The Canes have scored 17 goals in the past three games, and only allowed 3 goals against them, all by the Towers team. The Canes defense has really shown up and are proving it quite challenging to get past their strong and skillful backline which is led by Chris White, Julio Sanchez, Bryson Jackson, Lane Lackey, and goalie and team leader, Ricardo Sanchez-Hernandez.
Freshman Mason Smith has shown up big for the Canes too defensively, as well as up top in his play making abilities. In the Utopian region matchup, Lane Lackey led the team in goals with a hat trick (3 goals), freshman Juan Saldana had 2 goals, Andrew Smith 1, and Richie Sanchez-Hernandez had 1.
The Towers game went into overtime with a 3-3 score thanks to goals by Andrew Smith and Carson Clark in the first half, and then another by Carson Clark in the second half. In overtime, the Canes doubled their score thanks to a PK earned by Alex Bautista, and taken by Clark to earn him a hat trick, while Juan Saldana scored 2 more to end the game 6-3.
Last Friday, the Canes were itching to break the 10-year losing streak against neighbor and region rival Putnam County, which they did, 4-0. The Canes scored against the War Eagles in the first minute and five seconds of the game thanks to a handball in the box which resulted in a PK taken and scored by Clark. He scored another goal in the corner taking the Canes to a 2-0 lead at the half. Thanks to Alex Bautista pulling a PK in the first five minutes of the second half, Clark took the PK to earn himself a second hat trick in two games. Junior and team leader, Andrew Smith, sealed the win for the Canes with a fourth goal from outside the 18-box, which sent the War Eagles home with a devastating 4-0 region loss. This win put the Canes into the second spot out of six teams in the region.
The next four games are huge for the Canes and will determine their region standings, as well as if they will make it to the state playoffs, and even possibly host round one. Root the Canes on as they were to take on Social Circle Tuesday and Lamar on the road Friday.