Tigers fall to Bulldogs in district semifinal
Trending
LOGAN, Ohio -- Marietta dug itself an early hole and spent the rest of the night trying to dig themselves out of it in Wednesday night's Division II district semifinal against the Athens Bulldogs at Logan High School.
Despite a valiant effort, the Tigers were never quite able to pull even and eventually fell to the Bulldogs 4-2.
"We will kind of lament this one for a little while because our mistakes kind of led to their goals," said Marietta head coach Todd Morris. "I don't think they were able to really break us down but we just had some breakdowns that led to their four goals."
Athens beat the Tigers by the slimmest of margins with a 1-0 win early in the season and they quickly got on the board in the rematch when Austin Jaunarajs scored in the game's sixth minute on an unassisted goal.
Eight minutes later the Bulldogs struck again this time on an unassisted goal in the 14th minute by Owen Buckley.
The Tigers got off just four shots on goal in the opening half, including a pair by Landon Koscho, but were unable to get anything into the back of the net against Athens keeper Sebastian Arauz.
"We were just a little off early on and didn't deal with some dangerous balls that were in the box and we dug ourselves a bit of a hole," said Morris. "That wasn't how we drew it up for sure but I felt if we could have just gotten one of them back before the half to have some kind of momentum heading into the second half it would have been big but we were unable to."
It took the Tigers 13 minutes into the second half to finally get that momentum they were looking for on a huge goal by Cameron Davis got them on the board and pulled them to within one with plenty of time to even things up.
The Davis goal seemed to turn the tide a bit and make the Tigers the aggressors as after spending much of the first half defending the goal Marietta was able to get several good looks at the goal only to come up empty.
Athens survived the Tigers' charge and dealt them a huge blow with 15 minutes to go when Brady Jaunarajs snuck a kick between Tiger keeper Caden Gebzcyk and the goal to push the Athens lead back to two.
Finding themselves with their backs planted firmly against the wall the Tigers fought back one more time with just over five minutes to play when Josh Fournier's header off of a corner kick off the leg of Dillon Meagle got over Arauz's head for the Tigers' second goal of the game.
The Tigers hopes of a thrilling rally lasted all of about 10 seconds as Brady Jaunarajs scored his second goal of the half.
"The most frustrating part was every time we worked hard to get right back into it they were able to get one right back," said Morris. "I'm proud of the way we kept battling and kept battling. We could just never get equal."
Athens was able to keep the Tigers scoreless the rest of the way to earn their way into Saturday's district final against an opponent to be determined. The Bulldogs improved to 15-1-3 on the season while the Tigers season comes to a close after an outstanding 13-4-2 mark.