The Knights survive the Berean Terror in the 2nd round

Halloween is still two weeks away, but the Greenfield School boys soccer players got a little scare on Thursday, Oct. 17, in the second round of the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association 2-A playoffs.

The No. 6 seed Knights and unseeded Berean Baptist remained scoreless late in the second half before Greenfield sophomore Grayson Coulter headed a ball into the net from a free kick from junior Landyn Coolbaugh with less than 16 minutes to play and scored the only goal of the game.

Greenfield, now 14-7-1 overall, advances to the third round at home to Fayetteville Academy (15-0) on Saturday.

Greenfield first-year head coach George Venturella wasn’t worried about his defense Thursday as the Knights worked toward their 10th overall shutout and third in a row. But the offense had to settle down instead of sending long passes to forwards Cooke Rhodes and Coolbaugh.

“Their record definitely didn’t match their ability,” Venturella said of the Bulldogs (7-14), who beat Faith Christian 4-3 in overtime in the first round. “They were a strong, physical and fast team overall, and you expect those qualities from a team from Fayetteville. So we had to come back together at halftime and realize that we just have to play simple football and not just kick the ball down the field and hope that Cooke and Landyn can run.

“Once we started playing the ticky-tack in the middle, simple passes on the floor, we found each other, just made the fouls and got things going. I mean, our free kicks are dangerous and just as dangerous as we are with the ball at our feet. So we had to calm down a little at half-time, get back up to speed and then, once we did that, our defense is always our strength.”

Senior goaltender Kel Winstead managed the shutout, but only had to clear four Berean shots compared to 20 by the Knights. Greenfield’s five-man defensive line of Simon Quinn, Noah Wright and Garrison Wester in the middle, along with Zach Owens on the right side and Addison Wall on the left side, has also emerged as an offensive starter.

“It’s gone beyond what you can expect from him, just the chemistry between the guys, knowing what each other is going to do, every single play on the field, regardless of the team that’s playing them,” Venturella said. “But the attack doesn’t just start there. They are able to find the crucial passes through the channels and the passing lanes to the end and the majority of our game starts in central defense to be able to move the ball forward.”

While Greenfield was knocked off by 3-A members of its 2-A/3-A Coastal Plain Independents Conference – Coastal Christian, John Paul II Catholic and Cape Fear Academy – it also played a tough non-conference schedule that included a 3-2 Loss included Fayetteville Academy on September 25.

Venturella believes the experience will keep his boys grounded for the rematch.

“The key is to just play our game and not let them get us down,” he said of the third-seeded Eagles. “Mentally, Fayetteville teams tend to have some talkative players all the time, and that’s just one part that the guys have definitely overcome over the course of the season from where we started the season. Now the mental game is there and we can focus on what we actually need to do and just play our game. So when we play greenfield football it looks good, it’s easy and we find the key players throughout and they play as a team – that’s the main thing. So as long as no one tries to do more than they have to and they perform their role well, we should come out okay. When we try to overcompensate for something else, we run into these problems. Unfortunately that’s what happened last time and I just hope we can hold them until the end.”

And hopefully less scary for the knights.