Boys Soccer: North Ridgeville falls 1-0 to Olmsted Falls

NORTH RIDGEVILLE — Olmsted Falls and North Ridgeville were trying to get ready for the postseason tournament when they met up in a Southwestern Conference game Wednesday. After a 95-minute weather delay for thunder and lightning, the Bulldogs got a goal six minutes into the game and made it hold up for a 1-0 win. "They were fired up for this game, it's a conference opponent," Falls coach Travis Bosanac said. "Getting an early start is something we talked about, I'm just glad we showed up and were ready to go." The win pushed Falls to 9-5-1 overall with its fifth straight win and 4-2 in the SWC with a matchup coming against Avon, which has already clinched at least a share of the conference championship. The Rangers fell to 9-3-3, 3-2-1. "I think we started the game poorly, I think we were on our heels and we didn't come out here with the right mindset and they punched one in in the first five minutes from the start," Rangers coach George Panagiotou said. "We spent the rest of the game chasing." After some early back-and-forth, the Bulldogs got on the board off a corner kick when Jacob Mansell was able to get the ball to Evan Sente, who smoked a shot to the upper 90 with 34:08 left on the first-half clock. "I had good position, my teammate looks at me and gets me the ball, touched it immediately and my head was going, 'shoot that ball and put it in the top corner,'" Sente said of his fourth goal of the year. "It was just mental preparation and staying focused (during the weather delay). We wanted to get outside but we stayed focused and helped us get a win tonight." After the goal, North Ridgeville turned up the offensive pressure but had nothing to show for it with shots just off the mark or turned away by Matthew Jernejcic, who made seven first-half saves. The first close call came when Xavier Casey got a shot on goal off a free kick at 32:20. Just a few minutes later, Noah Ham had a header in the box gobbled up by Jernejcic. Ham then had a shot from the right wing clang off the far post at 26:33, and Xavier Chasen had a shot from the right side turned away to preserve the lead going to the second half. After the Rangers generated plenty of offensive chances in the first 40 minutes, the Bulldogs defense clamped down, limiting them to a pair of shots on goal to preserve the victory. Ham had an opportunity midway through the half with a shot from the right side that went wide of the mark. Casey had a free kick with 11 minutes left that got cleared out of the box, and with 4:05 left, Gio Rico fired a shot off a free kick that was saved as Falls ran out the clock for the win. Contact James Brady at jbrady_ct@yahoo.com.