The Lord Botetourt boys will wrap up their soccer regular season this week with two games. Botetourt was scheduled to host William Byrd on Tuesday and Friday the Cavaliers are at Staunton River.
Botetourt got two games in despite the inclement weather last week, losing to Byrd in Vinton, 2-1, and playing William Fleming to a scoreless tie. The Byrd game was played at Vinyard Park as Byrd’s stadium is getting artificial turf installed, and it wasn’t ideal conditions.
“Our team will naturally struggle anytime we play on a field where the grass completely covers the cleats of the players,” said coach Tim Wright. “With our possession based offense, high grass completely kills the ball speed, making it extremely difficult to string together quality passes.”
Junior captain Blake Myers was the lone goal scorer for the Cavs. Going into halftime the Cavaliers were down 1-0, and came out for the second half in a different formation that is more conducive to a long ball style of play.
“Coupled with not being able to settle in and a disproportion with respect to our potential and performance made for an extremely frustrating and disappointing game,” said Wright.
On Friday the Cavs played on the turf at William Fleming in a driving rain. After an exciting 90 minutes of play, including overtime, the Cavaliers performance reflected their potential despite the scoreless tie.
“Fleming is a very good team; a team that we took into overtime twice this season, defeating them once,” said Wright. “We worked hard and the second half was better than the first half, and overtime was better than the second half. The two things that I felt progressed during this game was the amount of rain that came down and our quality of play.”
Botetourt came into the final week of the regular season play with a record of 10-3-1.