Soccer title goes to Salisbury

Daniel Butner and the Salisbury boys soccer team have logged on.

The Hornets played air-tight defense, scored two goals in the last 15 minutes and captured, rather convincingly, the Rowan County Tournament Thursday night at North Rowan High School.

“It is extremely pleasing to get this because now we can get on with the rest of the season,” coach Tom Sexton said after Salisbury earned a 3-1 final-round victory over defending champion South Rowan. “We don’t have that nick in our fender to worry about. We can go on and take aim at a state title knowing we took care of business here.”

Butner, the pump-up-the-volume senior halfback, contributed two assists — his third and fourth of the tournament — and took home the MVP award.

“It’s a dream come true,” he said. “My best friend (South’s Dustin Efird) won it last year so I wanted it pretty bad this time. But that MVP, that’s everybody’s. That belongs to our whole team.”

Salisbury (2-0) pocketed its first prescription-strength victory by executing a carefully devised game plan. The Hornets effectively nullified Efird, South’s senior sweeper/defender extraordinaire, and handcuffed feisty Henry Menjivar, the Raiders’ chief scoring threat. With backs Jeremy Rehders, Drew Griffith and Daniel Wallace clearing that dangerous neighborhood in front of the net, Salisbury limited South (1-1) to six shots-on-goal.

“Our defense shut them down,” said Rehders. “Dan Wallace had an amazing game. He was in on every ball. Tonight, he looked better than his brother (former Hornet David Griffith).”

Even Chris Walters, South’s first-year coach, offered a roundabout compliment to the Hornets’ defense.

“I thought they took out Menjivar, bopping him like they did,” he said. “It seemed like whenever he got aggressive, the ref would call something against him. I think that was a key, that (Salisbury) busted him like they did. Intentional or not, it was our biggest downfall.”

Salisbury opened the scoring late in the first half when Will Ketcham settled a crossing pass from Bryan Goodnight and forced a doorstep shot past sophomore keeper Andrew Stroud.

“I knew this would be a tough match for (Stroud),” Walters said. “He’s a young guy. He’s inexperienced. He only played about 12 games in goal for the jayvee team last year.”

Ketcham, an animated sort with a writer’s knack for description, provided more details. “It came to me chest-off and I just volleyed it in,” he reported. “Basically, I just ambushed him.”

Despite a 1-0 halftime deficit, no one on the South sideline panicked. “It didn’t hurt us,” senior Adam Pethel insisted. “We had played pretty well. We just weren’t spreading it out. We weren’t getting our crosses to the inside.”

Efird, who reinjured his left hamstring late in the match, identified the problem as a passing one. “We were just knocking long through balls,” he said. “I know I couldn’t hold the ball and look for openings. They’d pressure me so much I’d have to knock it out of there. If we could have possessed the ball more instead of just kicking it around, it might have been different.”

It looked much different after South tied the score on Menjivar’s third goal of the tournament midway through the second half. Pethel centered a long ground ball from the left side that Menjivar flicked past Salisbury keeper Seth Ruhlman.

“It was so fast, lightning fast,” said Ketcham. “But a quality goal.”

So was the Hornets’ go-ahead score with 15 minutes to play. A blink-and-you-missed-it play, it began with Butner’s long throw-in from the right sideline. Teammate Ben Clark charged the net, found the ball and headed a shot just inside the far left post.

“The first thing I did was find out where Dustin was,” said Butner. “I made sure I got the ball over his head. Then Ben made the great finish.”

“That was our plan all night,” added Sexton. “Just keep it away from Efird. Let him be an All-American on another night.”

South was all-but-finished when Efird twisted his leg making a turn and had to come out of the game with five minutes to go. Salisbury’s Alex Beaver sealed the verdict when he scored on a slide-slide-slot play a minute later. He gathered the ball near the 18-yard line, faked a defender and drilled a shot into the lower left corner. “In my mind, that was the best goal of the game,” said Ketcham.

It was also the back-breaker for South. “At that point they knew they had it,” said Pethel. “Down two goals with Dustin on the sideline, it was hard for us to get anything going.”

Afterward, Sexton passed around compliments like they were a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

“We played with great temperament,” he summarized. “We were very relaxed, very confident. We waited for the game. Instead of forcing the play — like we did against West (in Wednesday’s 4-3 semifinal win) — we let the game come to us.”

And now, so has the county championship.

NOTES: The title was Salisbury’s fourth and second in three years. ... How’s this for ironic scheduling? The teams meet again Monday night in Landis. ... Efird said his injury was not as severe as the one that sidelined him for six weeks over the summer. He planned to go home, ice it down and rest.

West (1-1) earned a 3-0 victory over North (1-2) in the consolation match. Michael Wetter scored twice, giving him four goals in the tournament, while teammate Andrew Belk netted the other, his second. Keeper Tyler Parker made five saves to record the shutout.