STAC BOYS SOCCER: OWEGO SHUTS OUT BINGHAMTON (17 PHOTOS) (2019-10-07)
BY TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports ReportOWEGO — Owego couldn't have scripted it any better than this. The Indians' two seniors, Joey Higgins and Brady Clark, scored goals as their team defeated Binghamton, 3-0 — on Senior Night.
Higgins would dish out an assist on the first goal of the night, then score the second while Clark finished off the scoring.
"We had a lot of good chances to score, a couple nice plays on our goals," said Owego head coach Matt Walsh. "Hoping to get a few more of those as we move forward. It was a good night for our offense.
"Defensively, we've got to clean it up a little bit, but we'll be ready to go. Just a couple more games here in the regular season and then we have sectionals coming up."
Owego was tested by Patriot goalkeeper Josh Schull early as he denied the Indians' Yuri Birch and Jason Caldwell in the game's first 10 minutes. He would also defend a corner kick opportunity.
Finally, at 23:26, Higgins set up Birch for what proved to be the game-winning shot.
Binghamton would move the ball into the Indian end of the field on a handful of occasions, but couldn't find the back of the net. The Patriots had prime opportunities to score on a corner kick in the 25th minute and a direct kick in the 26th minute, but were denied by the Owego defense.
Two more direct kick attempts, one high and one off the crossbar, failed at 9:00 and 3:40 minutes, leaving the Indians with a 1-0 edge heading into the final three minutes of the half.
With 2:33 to go before the break, Birch found Higgins open for a 2-0 halftime advantage.
The Indians nearly made it 3-goal lead with 1:40 left in the half on a rebound of a direct kick, but came away empty.
Neither team could find the back of the net in the second half until Clark put away a rebound with 7:36 remaining in the game. Schull had made a nice diving save of an Owego shot from the right side of the goal, but was unable to recover in time to defend against Clark, who was left unguarded on the left side.
Owego (3-7-1) visits Horseheads Wednesday and ends the regular season at home Friday against Ithaca.
With the postseason looming, Walsh likes the progress the Indians have made this season.
"They're working hard," he said. "They're making steps from the beginning of camp up until now. We've improved all along, week by week, game by game, and we're just going to keep doing that moving forward."
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IN PHOTO 1: Owego's Brady Clark. ... PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
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