eagles down grace christian on senior night

It’s coming down to crunch time for the Seymour Eagles soccer team.

The Eagles improved to 10-3-2 overall with a convincing 3-0 win over visiting Grace Christian Tuesday on Senior Night at Benton Householder Field.

More importantly though for the up-and-down Eagles is Friday’s crucial contest at District 3-AA rival Alcoa (11-3-1, 4-0). Seymour, which lost its first and only conference game last week to Carter (8-2-2, 5-1), must defeat the league-leading Tornadoes to have a chance to finish tied for first place in the final regular season district standings.

Alcoa knocked off Carter 3-1 two weeks ago to take control of the conference.

“If we beat Alcoa we’ll be in a 3-way tie for first place,” said Eagles’ head coach Bobby Norwood. “We’ll have to play much better than we did against Carter last week though to even have a chance against Alcoa.”

Norwood said Friday’s 2-0 home loss to the Hornets was hard to watch for a coach.

 “We just weren’t ready and didn’t play our game against Carter,” Norwood continued. “I think the best team on that day won the game because we just didn’t’ show up.”

He said his team must overcome individual egos and play as a unit to have a chance of upsetting the Tornadoes Friday.

“Alcoa’s a good team but I think we’re as talented as any team in our district,” Norwood commented. “If we play our game and play as a team we can beat anybody, no doubt about it. As far as talent, this team is can be as good as any team that’s come through Seymour High School in a long time. They just have to make their minds up to do it and play as a team.”

Norwood said the SHS soccer program is going to miss the six seniors who played their final home game Tuesday in the win over Grace Christian. He said the group still has a chance to leave a nice mark on the program if they can play up to their potential in the final weeks of the 2008 season.

“As a group, they’re all good kids and we’re going to miss them,” said Norwood. “Like I said, they are a very talented group of seniors. We’re going to need them to step up and be leaders on Friday night.”

Chris Kjellgren scored Seymour’s first marker of the night Tuesday off a Carlos Lopez assist to give the home team an early 1-0 lead. Stephen Martin scored a goal later in the first half to put Seymour up 2-0 going into the halftime break. Lopez, a senior, scored the Eagles final tally of the evening early in the second half to provide the final margin.

Norwood said he played every player on the team Tuesday night in an effort to rest some players for Friday’s showdown in Blount County.