Blazers fall in shootout to Warriors

Lady Blazers blanked by Douglas, Worland

Andrew Towne
Posted 5/4/23

TORRINGTON – After a scoreless first half, sophomore Elijah Hatch snuck the ball past the Worland goalie to take a 1-0 lead with 30 minutes to play.

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Blazers fall in shootout to Warriors

Lady Blazers blanked by Douglas, Worland

Posted

TORRINGTON – After a scoreless first half, sophomore Elijah Hatch snuck the ball past the Worland goalie to take a 1-0 lead with 30 minutes to play.

Torrington was unable to hold on for an upset of the No. 1-ranked team in the state, falling in a shootout on Saturday afternoon. It capped off a winless weekend for the Blazer boys’ soccer team.

On Friday, the Blazers fell 4-0 on the road to the Douglas Bearcats.

Torrington allowed Douglas to jump out to a quick 3-0 lead before settling down for the remainder of the game.

“We didn’t really change the formation, we just tried to plug someone in for Adam (Bartlett),” THS coach Gabe Bartlett said. “It didn’t go the way we wanted it to. They jumped on us.”

All three goals came within the first 10 minutes of the match.

“We just couldn’t claw back. We fought and fought,” Bartlett said. “We actually dominated the rest of the game, but we couldn’t get it done.”

Douglas managed to add a penalty kick in the final minutes of the contest.

On Saturday, the Blazers returned home and had an upset on their minds against the defending state champions.

“We got together as a team before the game and figured out how we wanted to play our formation,” Bartlett said. “This was truly a whole team effort. They went out and followed it. You can’t ask them to do any more against Worland.”

The end result was a change in formation coming into the game.

“We completely changed our formation,” Bartlett said. “Not necessarily parking the bus but playing more defensive oriented. They executed it to a T. We took our shots when we had them, and let Anthony and Hatch take on their whole back line.”

In the 50th minute of action, Hatch broke the scoreless tie to give the Blazers a 1-0 lead.

“Funny thing was that happened to us last night against Douglas,” Bartlett said. “They ran almost an identical play. Hatch and Anthony communicated and said look at this space, and he beat the kid to the ball. It’s those two playing the way they should.”

It was a lead which Torrington held until the 78th minute.

In the 70th minute, Torrington found itself down a man for the remainder of the game after being issued a red card.

“That hurt us,” Bartlett said. “If Greysen (Shields) is in there, we win the game. It’s as easy as that.”

Worland tied the game with only two minutes remaining, ultimately setting up a shootout since Class 3A did away with overtimes during the regular season.

The Warriors outscored Torrington 4-3 in the shootout to escape town with the victory.

Kaiden Riggs, Hatch and Beau Shimic netted three penalty kicks for Torrington in the shootout.

Torrington is now 4-4 on the season and 3-3 in the 3A East Conference.

Lady Blazers fall twice

The THS girls suffered a 5-0 loss to Douglas on Friday afternoon, and a 10-0 loss to Worland on Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday, the visiting Lady Warriors found the back of the net four times in the first half. Worland had the aid of the stiff north breeze in the second half, and the Lady Warriors added six more goals.

The Lady Blazer record falls to 0-8 overall and 0-6 in the 3A East Conference.

Up next

Torrington wraps up the home portion of the schedule on Saturday, May 6 against Buffalo. Girls’ kickoff of at noon with the boys to follow at 2 p.m.