HART — Hart entered Thursday's pre-district matchup with Montague hopeful that it could replicate a regular-season victory over the Wildcats, but two quick goals from Montague put Hart in a hole it couldn't dig out of in a 2-0 defeat.
The Wildcats' Noah Raeth managed to sneak a couple of long and well-placed shots past Pirate keeper Miguel Escamilla early in the game. The Pirates had been struggling to score goals in recent games, not going over two goals in any of the previous six games, so conceding early was a blow.
"(Raeth) had two amazing, really
well-placed shots," Hart coach Jonah Kelley said. "People don't score on Miguel from that far out
too often...Especially when we've been struggling to score, your job's a lot tougher playing from behind. We just made a
mistake up top with rotations and that left us pretty vulnerable
on the left side."
Hart's Rivaldo Gonzalez winds up to take a shot as Montague's Austin White stays with him during Thursday's district game at Hart. The Pirates lost, 2-0.
Hart (4-15-1) tried hard to rally back, but Montague was able to be aggressive to the ball on many occasions and maintained possession, making it more difficult for the Pirates to launch any sustained counter-attacks.
The Hart defense and Escamilla showed improvement throughout the season - the Pirates only allowed over three goals twice after the calendar hit September - and Kelley said the work that side of the ball put in was one of the things he was most impressed with from his team. Some late momentum in the midfield, unfortunately, couldn't be sustained into Thursday.
"The defense
stepped it up big time," Kelley said. "We had pretty much all new guys back there. We went from very shaky at best to reliable, solid and
tough to score on. We struggled in the midfield all year. We finally
found some momentum, it feels like, in the last two games here, but we just
couldn't finish, unfortunately."
In future seasons, Kelley said he hopes the team is able to enjoy the process more rather than worrying about results, believing this year's Pirates felt a lot of pressure to perform when the team got off to a slower start than the players anticipated. Still, he expressed pride in the Pirates' season-long effort.
"I'm proud that we battled till the end," Kelley said. "I'm proud that these guys stuck it out with me and gave me their
best effort. They had a lot of improvements throughout the season. We just ran out of time to improve, unfortunately."
