OXFORD — Starkville boys soccer will stay alive to fight another day in the Class 7A playoffs after winning a 4-3 thriller in the first round at Oxford. The Chargers led twice in the first half, only to be undone by a hattrick from Jacket forward Brandon Shaffer.
“It was a good one, and good timing at that,” head coach Evinn Watson said of the performance.
The game didn’t go exactly to plan for the Jackets, who gave up an early goal, but Shaffer more than matched the back-and-forth nature by scoring all three goals in the first half.
“We started out the game knowing we wanted to score early, usually we get momentum from early goals,” Watson continued. “His scoring was big for us and that’s what got us going through the rest of the game.”
The Jackets led 3-1 before giving up two second-half goals, but Patricio Lespron delivered a late winner to send them through to the next round. Lespron, a senior like Shaffer, is normally not involved in the attack, but he joined at the right moment late in the game to score the decisive goal.
It was a reflection of the confidence the Jackets retained even after conceding goals. They saw the space was there for them to keep getting forward, and they were able to find overloads. Even as things seemingly fell apart, Watson was happy to see the team keep focus and find a way to score.
“The biggest thing is trying to stick to our game plan,” he said. “That’s usually doing what we have to do to keep possession and advance the ball from the back. It’s hard in 7A where everyone wants to press, and we didn’t do it at the beginning for that reason, but we had to trust our game to build up out of the back. We started to get in the flow of the game and that’s what got us back in the game.”
The Jackets will travel to Madison Central for the next round of the playoffs, a team that they’ve already lost to twice this season. The Tigers are usually one of the strongest teams in Mississippi and proved that to the Jackets with a 3-0 win in Starkville and a 6-0 win in Madison during the regular season.
“On paper, they’re probably the best team in the state,” Watson said. “We’ve played them twice and lost both times, the second time being one of the worst losses in my career. We don’t want to go in with the same game plan, so we’re gonna switch things up and see what happens.”
The Jackets and Tigers will face off at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at Madison Central High School.
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