By Ted Waddell
JEFFERSONVILLE — October 19, 2001 – The Bulldog booters of Sullivan West (7-8, 4-3 OCIAA Division IV) proved that their bite was worse than their bark during Wednesday afternoon’s boys’ varsity soccer match as they blanked the Chester Hambletonians (2-8-1, 1-6 OCIAA Division IV) by a score of 3-0.
The Bulldogs dominated the field from the git go, but as has been their pattern this season, had trouble putting the ball into the net.
In the opening frame, Kevin Erlwein headed the ball past the Chester keeper John Knutson off a cross from Justin Pinkel at 9:35.
A few minutes later, Kevin Brucher pranged a sure-shot penalty kick off the upper crossbar.
At 30:28, Pinkel got a head on the ball and scored unassisted to give the Bulldogs a 2-0 halftime lead.
With 4:18 remaining in the game, Brucher scored unassisted to guarantee the Bulldogs a berth in the upcoming sectionals.
SW registered 20 shots on goal, while Chester managed only six. SW also had a big advantage in corner kicks, forcing 10 of its own and not allowing Chester a single one.
Bulldog goalie Matt Pomes was credited with five saves, while Knutson had 17.
“I think we pretty much controlled the game,” said SW coach Howie Whitmore. “We just can’t seem to finish. . . to put the ball in the net.”
According to Whitmore, the Bulldog booters have lost a couple of 2-1 games, and even won a match by a similar score, during which they controlled the game but had difficulty getting their shots into the mesh for a score.
“We’re holding our own quite well against the teams that we have to, but we just don’t have a strong scorer,” he added. “We really don’t have one guy who can score a lot . . . we have a lot of good player-athletes and we can score. We’ve had about 14 guys score goals this season.”
“We’re scattered all over the place,” added Whitmore, alluding to his team’s shotgun approach to getting the ball past the opposing goalies.
Whitmore said this year’s Bulldog JV team folded after a single game. In addition, the current varsity squad includes 10 seniors.
“Next year we move up to Class B, and we’ll have a real young team of mostly juniors,” he added.