Soccer: Freshman Chemics, Warriors tie 1-1

by Brent Koaches

Bay City Western’s Rich Sabias scored in the opening minute of the second half Monday to erase an early Midland lead as the freshman Chemics and visiting Warriors battled to a 1-1 tie at Midland Community Stadium.

Sabias’ goal came just 35 seconds into the second half on a header from the front of the net that eluded goalkeeper Eric Nartker and tied the score at 1-1.

The Warriors would never really threaten again in the half, while Midland had a number of scoring opportunities late in the game that they were unable to capitalize on.

“The youth of the team has a lot to do with it,” said Midland coach Sean Torkelson. “The cool thing about it is, when they’re young like this, they can get those chances that we’re looking for, but if they miss those chances, then we know we’ve got a lot more work to do. Now we can see the level where we need to be.”

The Chemics got on the board just over three minutes into the contest when Cameron Werth broke through the defense and floated a high shot towards the net. Western goaltender Taylor Shumann leaped, but the ball was just out of his grasp and skipped off his hands and into the net for the first goal of the game.

Midland would get several other chances throughout the opening half, including another by Werth with 27:30 left to play when he clanked a shot off the crossbar from just inside the goal box.

After the game, Torkelson said the maturity and overall experience of the older Bay City team had a big effect on the game’s final score.

“I knew today’s game was going to be a tough match for us because [Western] is a little older than us,” he said. “They have a group of mostly sophomores and we have a group of almost all freshmen. We had to rise to a little bit higher physical level, and I felt like this would be a good thing for us to see where we are as a team right now.”

Torkelson also knows that the rest of the season will be a test for the Chemics as they still have plenty of things to work on.

“We really need to work on continuing to space ourselves out and play well with each other possession-wise and keeping the ball,” he said. “Also, we need better transitions—just playing quicker between offense and defense.”

The tie brings the Chemics’ record to 1-1-3 overall.

Midland will be in action Wednesday when they travel to Saginaw to take on the Heritage Hawks. Game time is scheduled for 5 p.m.

For more photos from Monday’s game, click on “Photo Slideshow” in the top right corner of this article.

Photos by Jason Wolverton