Stowall’s overtime goal powers Kennett to win at Unionville
By Neil Geoghegan
ngeoghegan@21st-centurymedia.com
@NeilMGeoghegan on Twitter
EAST MARLBOROUGH >> The latest edition of the Route 82 rivalry wasn’t high scoring, but when Kennett and Unionville hooked up for a boys’ soccer clash on Thursday it was highly intense with fleeting moments of potential scoring excitement.
Like a jostled carbonated drink, the building pressure finally exploded about halfway through the first overtime when the Blue Demons’ Julian Stowell notched the lone goal in 43-plus minutes of action, powering Kennett to a key 1-0 Ches-Mont American victory over the host Longhorns.
“The big key for us is that we need to believe in ourselves,” said Blue Demons’ head coach Mike Barr. “That is often a problem at Kennett, where we don’t believe in ourselves. Now, something like this could make a big difference.”
Nobody seemed to know how long it’s been, but it was Kennett’s first win in the series in at least four years (there was a rather recent tie along the way). And in what is expected to be a crazy, multiple team scramble for the division and league crowns, this early one was important.
“This was huge. We talked afterwards about how getting this win could make a big difference in our season,” Barr said.
“It was a pretty big win – we haven’t got one against them in at least four years,” added Stowell, a senior. “This erased the ghosts of those teams before us. Every time we come out and play against (Unionville) you just want to bury them.”
A scoreless deadlock through regulation, the Longhorns had two consecutive corner kicks in the first three minutes of the OT, and on the second the ball bounced off numerous Unionville players, but all that resulted was a weak shot by Luke Jackson that was corralled by Kennett’s freshman keeper Kevin Vasquez.
“We had opportunities, we just didn’t cash them in,” said Longhorns’ head coach Rich Garber. “There was that melee early in the overtime and all we needed was somebody to step up and put it into the net. But everybody wants to make a pretty goal and sometimes you just have to take the ugly ones.”
On the ensuing counterattack, Kennett’s Manny Guzman delivered a pass to Stowell, and he beat Unionville goaltender Justin Teufel to the nearside to end it.
“We played it out wide and got it back into the middle,” Stowell explained. “Reagan (Pelletier) found Manny (Guzman) and he just played a beautiful ball to me on an overlapping runout wide, I just chose a corner and put it in.”
It was an impressive finish from a player who started the season as a defender.
“We had Julian in the back, but he just drives people crazy so we moved him to striker just two games ago,” Barr explained. “He is just aggressive and I am so happy he got the goal.”
The Demons improve to 3-0 overall (1-0 in the league) and have yet to surrender a goal so far this season. The Longhorns fall to 0-1, 0-2 overall.
“It’s early in the season, so we will try to get better as we go forward,” Garber said. “We are still trying to figure it out. We lost Saturday to Haverford (High School) with two minutes left in the game.
“But we played much better tonight than we did last weekend.”
Senior midfielder Hunter Darlington had a couple scoring chances for Unionville, including one with just over eight minutes left in regulation, but his shot went wide. Moments later, Stowell got his foot on a pass from teammate Gavin Seele in front of the cage but deflected it over the cross bar.
The only serious scoring chances in a physical first half came when Unionville generated back-to-back opportunities with less than six minutes on the clock. The first was a two-man game from Zach Jackson to Darlington that was foiled by Vasquez. Moments later Vasquez beat the ’Horns Parker Wyatt to a downfield pass right in front of the Kennett cage.
“We’ve lost some leaders,” Garber said. “But I thought we did a pretty solid job on defense.
“I thought we put (Kennett) under a lot of pressure but their backs came up and were solid all night. And they had a new goalie in there and he held up.”
The Longhorns had a slight edge in shots on goal (9-6) and corner kicks (5-3).
“We made some defensive mistakes, and we haven’t put it all together yet. So I think we can get better,” Barr said.
Unionville will play Central League power Conestoga on Saturday and then have Ches-Mont contenders West Chester East and West Chester Henderson next week.
“We could be in a hole pretty quick if we don’t figure some things out,” Garber said.
Kennett 1, Unionville 0 (OT)
Kennett 0 0 1 — 1
Unionville 0 0 0 — 0
Kennett goal: Stowell.
Goalie saves: Vasquez (K) 9; Teufel (U) 5.
