Boys Regional Soccer: London Carnie helps Avon to 3-0 win over North Royalton

BRUNSWICK — Senior London Carnie didn't let a little rain and wind bother him Wednesday night. Carnie, Avon's leading scorer, poked in two goals as the Eagles took care of business in the Division II regional semifinals against North Royalton with a 3-0 victory at Brunswick's Automart Stadium. Avon's boys duplicated what the girls did to North Royalton on Tuesday. The girls advanced to the regional final with a 1-0 win over the Bears. "The entire team was stoked," said Carnie. "It was unbelievable in the locker room (at halftime). Everyone was like wowing — it was crazy." "London is a special player," Avon veteran coach Chris Dore said. "There is absolutely no doubt about it. He has the ability to change the game in ways that I don't have other players in the program's history can play quite like that from an offensive standpoint. But it's a team effort and I know he would say the same thing." Playing against a stiff wind out of the south in the first half, Dore decided to start the game into the wind and it paid off. Avon improved to 15-1-3 while 19th-ranked North Royalton finished 9-9-1 against a very strong schedule. "There's no doubt about it," said Dore, who has authored 252 wins in his 20 years at the helm. "We actually wanted to go against the wind in the first half cause I felt like with the wind in the second half when you don't have a ton of energy left, we'd be at a better advantage. "Objectively we wanted to play well enough to not get scored on, maybe go up a goal, but going up two goals was huge for us cause now we have the confidence and the wind in the second half." Third-ranked Avon scored twice in the first half and added a third goal in the second to breeze past the Bears and into Sunday's regional final at Boliantz Stadium in Macedonia at 1 p.m. against ninth-ranked Lakewood, a 2-1 winner over sixth-ranked Solon. "Unbelievable achievement," Carnie said. "We did it last year. We focused on just one game at a time and we finally got to that state championship last year." He'd like to repeat. Should Avon win on Sunday, it'll mark the fifth time the Eagles have qualified for the Final Four since 2018. Junior Connor Britt had Avon's first goal with 26:35 left in the first half. He scored off a feed in front of the net, pounding the ball past North Royalton sophomore Alex Ponting. Carnie scored his first with 6:51 left in the half as he broke free in front of the goal. He added the third with 31:11 left in the game as he dribbled it in front and slid it past Ponting. From there, Avon controlled the ball, the tempo and the game. An example of Avon's pure hustle was a play made by Valentino Cruzado with about 25 minutes left. Cruzado hustled after a ball that was going out of bounds near North Royalton's goal and he managed to keep the ball in play and set up a possible goal, but the shot hit the post. "Effort, you know like those little intangibles," said Dore. "It's the thing championship teams are built on. Sliding and keeping the ball in play. Those little things build energy in your team and also kind of deflating to the other team." "We knew (North Royalton) wanted to play the long ball (in the second half)," Carnie said. "Our teammate Cole Veverka did a great job — all of our back line — winning those balls into our midfield. We played our game." Veverka, a junior, along with seniors Vincent Palumbo and Ghassan Mossolly and junior Andrew Mikes kept the ball safely away from the goal. Owen Huron, the netminder, was credited with one save, an early chance the Bears had of getting on the board. It was Avon's 12th shutout of the season. "We had a good opportunity about four minutes into the game," said North Royalton coach Drew English. "Obviously if that goes in, we have an opportunity to shift the game, momentum-wise. We told the guys, we wanted the wind because with the rain the ball would skip and it would be a messy game. "(Avon) had a couple great finishes there in the first half and kind of put us on our heels." Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or timothygeb@msn.com.