By Dave Morrison
George Washington has a trio of the best players in Class AAA soccer.
All played a part on the Patriots 3-1 win against Woodrow Wilson on the Class AAA Region 3 championship victory at Paul Cline Stadium Thursday.
But the key goal came off a slide and a fortuitous bounce.
Up 1-0 at the half, the Patriots survived a close header from Woodrow Wilson’s Shammad Wynne-Thompson before scoring the goal that ended up being the difference.
The Patriots had a free kick from outside the box. On the entry kick, Wes Goodwin, one of those top players, who scored the first goal for George Washington, off an assist from Michael Leuchauer, considered by some the top player in the state, but he missed contacting the ball. It seemed to close off Goodwin in front of the goal.
The Patriots Caleb Carney slid into a scrum in front of the goal and kicked the ball to the other side of the goal where Ben Trethewey was waiting and he tapped it in for the goal.
Right place, right time.
“It was like a little scrum, and they did have someone in the right place at the right time,” Woodrow Wilson coach Steve Laraba said. “A lot of times in games like this that are highly contested it’s not this great choreographed move that creates these goals, it’s something like a little toe poke that you can’t really plan for.”
That poke sends George Washington to the state tournament also at Paul Cline Stadium next week.
To that point goalie Bryson Doss was an impenetrable wall and he played a “fantastic” game in goal for the Flying Eagles, Laraba said.
“I think Bryson had a fantastic night in goal,” Laraba said, “He made a lot of great saves, he was in the right place at the right time and only really gave up one rebound and that was in the first half, and he recovered and saved that point blank shot there. I thought he did very, very well for us.”
George Washington added a goal when Luechauer, who lined up for a point-blank penalty kick late in the game and instead tipped it off to C.J. Knapper for the goal.
Luechauer, who averaged nearly two goals a game, was held scoreless but he also had a nice cross to Wes Goodwin in front of the goal with 4:06 remaining in the opening half that gave the Patriots a 1-0 lead at the half.
“When you are playing against a team of 10 seniors and one junior in goal, that’s a lot of experience and a lot of growth and development,” Laraba said. “They are a very good team. They just capitalized on the mistake we made better than we capitalized on the mistakes they made. They didn’t;t make a lit but we needed to be able to finish those when we had a chance.”
George Washington coach Erik Engle praised the effort of the Flying Eagles.
“Any time that you come here and play Woodrow you know that they are going to give you everything they have,” Engle said. “That team is so well coached, their boys are so disciplined, they have so much heart. I love those matches. I love knowing we are going to have such great competition and they are such good hosts anytime we come here. They are young. I saw that starting lineup and I heard sophomore, sophomore freshman, and like, oh God, they are going to be here forever.”
Woodrow finished the season with a 15-4-2 record. George Washington is now 18-2-1.
