The Mt. Abram junior slips in the winning goal.
By Kevin Mills
Staff Writer

MONMOUTH – Sam Witherspoon knew there would be an open net somewhere. So he just tried to provide the soccer ball a little direction.

With Frank Hayes’ pass ahead creating an opportunity, Witherspoon had the ball as an oncoming keeper approached. He didn’t have much time but knew the net would be clear.

“I was just trying to lift it over the goalie because I knew he was coming out hard,” said the junior Mt. Abram forward. “I knew there was an open net behind him.”

Witherspoon’s shot got past the keeper, eluded defenders that tried to chase it and got a nice little bounce that helped ease the ball into an open net to lift the Roadrunners to a 2-1 overtime victory over Monmouth Monday. Witherspoon’s goal came just 56 seconds into the first overtime to keep the Roadunners unbeaten at 6-0-1.

“We started controlling a lot more,” said Witherspoon, whose team overcame a 1-0 deficit. “We started pounding and pounding and pounding. We knew eventually something good would happen. It just took until overtime to do it.”

It was another hard loss for the Mustangs (4-2). Monmouth dominated the first 10 minutes of the game, managing one goal during that span.

“I’ll be honest, we should be 6-0,” said Monmouth coach Gary Trafton, whose team also lost to Hall-Dale, 2-0. “We didn’t play that good (at Hall-Dale), and we certainly played a lot better today than we did at Hall-Dale, but if we don’t finish, we’re not going to win games.”

The Mustangs caught the Roadrunners flat to start the game and outshot Mt. Abram 5-0 early. Monmouth finally scored at 12:24. A Matt Elliot throw-in was bobbled by Mt. Abram keeper Andy Sperry, and Mark Wade kicked in the rebound.

“We should have finished it off,” said Trafton. “How many chances did we have to finish it?”

It would be Monmouth’s only goal. Elliot’s long throws created havoc in front of the net, but Sperry was on just about every ball and players like Justin Howard, Willie Nalle and Christian Talmage helped clear any threatening loose balls in front of the goalmouth.

“The flip-throw, that’s hard to defend,” said Mt. Abram coach Darren Allen. “Andy plays the high ball well. Sometimes he tries to catch it, and he’s going to get knocked and you’re not going to get the call all the time. He needs to start punching the ball, but he came up big when he had to.”

When Damien Wood drew a yellow card for bumping into Monmouth keeper Kyle Pelletier and Allen drew a yellow for arguing, the game’s intensity picked up significantly and that helped provide the spark the Roadrunners needed.

“The keeper got hit a couple of times,” said Allen. “Damien got his yellow, and I got mine. That sort of lit a fire. I think they thought they were going to come down and have an easy time of it. I told them that the easy games are over.”

The Roadrunners picked up the pace midway through the first half and got the equalizer from Jeff Beal with 7:17 left. He curled a direct kick around the wall. It took a strange bounce and hopped past Pelletier.

“It’s a weird field back there,” said Witherspoon. “We looked at that in our warm-ups, and we got lucky with that.”

Mt. Abram threatened for much of the second half, getting some help from Monmouth’s fouls.

“We certainly didn’t have composure,” said Trafton. “You can’t foul. We talked about that. You can’t give them free shots down there. That first goal was a free kick.”

The Roadrunners didn’t score in regulation but quickly caught a break when Hayes won the ball in the midfield to start overtime. He knew he had Witherspoon and Wood on the wings up front.

“Split the middle,” he said. “I saw Sam there and no one was in the middle. So I put it up the middle.”