By By Laurence Hilliard/special to the Star
June 23, 2002
The Meridian over 30 soccer team put itself in position to win the State Games gold medal with a 1-0 victory Saturday over the pre-tournament favorite from Flowood.
He was referring to Germany's 1-0 win in the World Cup quarterfinals Friday, despite being outshot by the underdog Americans, 10-6.
Shahid Ghafoor scored Meridian's goal against Flowood on a rebound early in the second half. "We were able to defend our lead after that," Makey said. He gave much of the credit for the win to sweeper Eric Ferry, who is stationed at the Meridian Naval Air Station who recently returned to the United States from Italy.
Flowood features Tony Fulton, a former NAIA player of the year at Belhaven College. "We were watching him very closely at all times, as you might expect, because he's a real dangerous player," Makey said. "Eric was instrumental in shutting him out."
There are five teams in the 30-and-over competition. Medals will be decided by round-robin competition, using a point system that awards 6 points for a win, 3 points for a tie, 1 point for each goal up to three in a game and 1 point for a shutout.
After defeating Flowood, Meridian downed Jackson, 7-0. "That's a game we should have won," said Makey, who is unable to play in the tournament due to recent knee surgery. "They're a new team."
Meridian has 18 points, eight for the win over Flowood and the maximum 10 for the win over Jackson. That puts Meridian in a tie with Hattiesburg, which blanked Jackson, 4-0, and Pascagoula, 1-0, in its two games Saturday.
The two leaders will meet at 12:30 p.m. today at Northeast Park in the game that should decide the gold medal. Meridian will also play Pascagoula at 5 p.m. and Hattiesburg has a 3:30 p.m. matchup with Flowood.
The open competition has 16 teams in four 4-team groups. After roundrobin competition, the winner of each group will advance to the semifinals at 2 p.m. today, with the gold medal and bronze medal games scheduled for 5 p.m.
There was an upset in Group B, with Clinton knocking off a team from Mississippi State, 2-0, in the opener for both teams. "They were supposed to be the best team, but we dominated them," Clinton Coach Andrew Richardson said.
Jason Rushing scored both Clinton goals, but Richardson would not single out any player for praise. "The whole team stepped up in that game."
Clinton followed up its win over Mississippi State with a scoreless tie against Hattiesburg, and leads Group B with 13 points. Hattiesburg, a 1-0 winner over Laurel in its opener, has 12 points, Mississippi State, a 6-0 winner over Laurel, 10 points, while Laurel is scoreless after being shut out twice. The roundrobin will be completed this morning with Clinton playing Laurel and Hattiesburg playing Mississippi State, both games at 9:30.
Clinton had to play 10 against 11 the entire second half of the Hattiesburg game after one of its players received a red card. "Even with the red card, I felt we could have won that game," Richardson said.
The defending champion, the Jackson Fury (the nickname was Hooligans last year) defeated Starkville, 2-1, and Casa Monterey, 2-0, to take the lead in Group D with 17 points. Brilla, another team from Clinton, is the first-day leader in Group A with 15 points to 14 for Starkville, 12 for Hattiesburg and 1 for Morton.
In Group C, Long Beach is the leader with 18 points after downing the Meridian Chiefs, 1-0, and Pearl, 4-0. Meridian is in last place in with 5 points. Meridian tied Brandon, 2-2, Saturday and plays Pearl at 12:30 today.