VERNON — When putting Boardman on the schedule, Badger coach Scott Smith hoped for a challenge for his players.
The Braves fought for 80 minutes, 20 of those with just 10 players, finishing with a 1-1 draw against the Spartans on Tuesday.
“Just seeing where we’re at,” Smith said. “I’ve got a young team. We lost quite a few key players, but we have some really good key players coming back. I have huge faith in my freshmen, and I just wanted to see where we’d be. I’m very proud of them. Defensively solid. We holed up, we absorbed pressure, we still played our game. We have our identity. I honestly couldn’t be prouder.”
After trading chances for roughly the first 50 minutes of action, Badger finally broke through the stalemate. Junior Silas Harnett got the better of Boardman’s Ben Kelso to put his team on the board.
Ten minutes later, Spartans junior Oswaldo Salinas got the equalizer, but in the seconds following, Badger goalkeeper Jacob Cunningham picked up a red card for making contact with one of the Boardman players retrieving the ball in the net.
Forced to play a man down for the final 20 minutes, Badger had to play shutdown defense. It surrendered a handful of chances, but preserved the score.
“I looked at (the video and) I think we’re incredibly unfortunate to get that red card. But I told my boys over there, the thing I’m proud of the most is that they didn’t lose their heads,” Smith said. “We played our game. Nobody dropped, even knowing we were playing a team that’s much bigger than us, a school that’s much larger than us, a man down. We didn’t just park the bus, we still attacked.”
Despite the odds against them, the players were unhappy at the draw.
“I had to calm them all down because they were upset that we tied a man down, and that speaks volumes to my team and their mentalities,” Smith said.
Throughout the season so far, the Boardman Spartans have been great at generating chances, but have struggled at capitalizing on them. That continued on Tuesday, missing multiple quality scoring opportunities.
“We’re trying to figure out the attack. Some things fall, some things don’t, but we just try to keep making the opportunities,” Boardman coach Erik Little said. “Tough one out here. Badger played their hearts out. They played like it was a playoff game, and we played like it was Sunday league. They had the intensity. I think they deserved that, especially with the red card at the end. They really left their hearts out on the field, and I feel like we left a little bit more to be desired.”
In the coming days, Boardman hopes to continue refining its offense and make its rush in the attacking third more effective.
“Practice finishing, working on the team chemistry in the final third, there’s a lot to work on at this point, but we’re looking for goals,” Little said. “We’re trying to manufacture those, and we just got to get a few more to fall. I don’t like to say luck and all that, but on a different day, maybe we get a few more. But today wasn’t that day. Sometimes you need a bounce.”
The Spartans open up their league schedule on Thursday with Howland.
“Howland’s record doesn’t indicate how good they actually are. The AAC is a tough, tough conference, so we’re going to start conference play here, and it’s going to be brutal. Hopefully the boys can dig deep and find some spirit and some fight in the next match.”
Badger travels to Pymatuning Valley on Thursday.
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