×

Golden Bears move on

By ANDREW GRIMM

Special to the Review

NEW MANCHESTER — The Oak Glen boys soccer team was careful not to look past Monday’s sectional opener against Magnolia, but it did know that a win would mean a rematch with rival Weir High on Wednesday.

The Golden Bears held up their end of the deal, defeating the Blue Eagles, 8-0, at home to advance in the West Virginia Class AA/A Region 1, Section 1 tournament. It sets up the Hancock County showdown at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Jimmy Carey Stadium.

“Every year, (Weir) is one of the teams that you want to beat. We have not beat them since I started coaching, so of course we’d like to get to them, but you never want to look past a team,” Oak Glen coach Joe Provenzano said. “I told the kids at practice not to look past Magnolia. We played them earlier in the season, and they are a young team. My team sometimes thinks it is going to be easy and doesn’t play soccer. Today, they played soccer. Take nothing away from Magnolia.”

Oak Glen (7-8-4) fired away throughout the entire game, attempting 51 shots and controlling possession right from the start. Magnolia (2-13-3) attempted just four shots.

“That is probably the most shot attempts we have had this year,” Provenzano said. “I was happy that we were working the ball around more than the shots and even the goals. We were playing team soccer (Monday), and that is what I want to see out of these boys.

“We have struggled with goals this year, so the last few games we have been telling them to take shots because you can’t score if you don’t shoot. It’s a shame it took them to the end of the season to find it. Hopefully, we can keep it rolling.”

Seth Mozingo scored the first two goals of the game and recorded a hat trick for the Golden Bears, while Dan Dwoskin scored twice.

“It was big just to get their confidence up,” Provenzano said. “(Mozingo) has not scored a lot this year, so it was good for him to get his confidence up. He started playing like the player that he can be. This is the time to come on.”

Oak Glen attempted a lot of shots early in the game but did not score until the 19th minute when Mozingo connected on a penalty kick. About six minutes later, he took a pass in close and made it a 2-0 game.

The score remained that way until the Golden Bears doubled the lead with goals late in the first half and early in the second. First, Dwoskin buried a follow-up chance off a Andrew Snyder rebound in the 38th minute. Then, not even three minutes into the second half, Lucas Harris sent a cross to Gage Bailey who headed the ball into the net to make it 4-0.

Lucca Contin scored on a penalty kick with 27 minutes to go to make it 5-0. Dwoskin then netted his second goal on another rebound to make it 6-0 about five minutes later.

Mozingo set up Harris with just under nine minutes to play, then closed the scoring about a minute later with a slick move around a defender before burying his third of the game.

Magnolia goalkeeper Woodson London made 19 saves in the game, while Oak Glen’s Jacob Clark made just two for the shutout.

Oak Glen dropped a 3-0 setback at Weir High during the regular season, something that is not lost on Provenzano. This time around, he has an idea as to what his team needs to do differently.

“Weir is a tough team,” he said. “We played them tough last time and lost. They are a smart team and have a couple really good players. We have got to possess the ball. If we can possess the ball, we can play right with them and have the opportunity to beat them.”

Magnolia coach Ryan Yost declined to comment.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.39/week.

Subscribe Today