By By Thomas Burton/special to The Star
October 13, 2002
The Meridian Community College men enjoyed their portion of Saturday's Rush Invitational soccer tournament, as they blasted Itawamba Community College 11-0.
In other action in the second day of the three-day event, the MCC women battled Bossier (La.) Parish Community College to a 2-2 tie and the East Central Community College men fell to Wallace-Hanceville (Ala.) State 4-2.
The event winds up today when the Itawamba men take on the University of West Alabama at 1:30 p.m. at the MCC soccer field.
The Lions of Wallace-Hanceville left the event as the unofficial champions, being the only undefeated team in the event. Hanceville defeated MCC 4-1 on Friday night.
MCC women 2
Bossier 2
Saturday's match between the Lady Eagles and Lady Cavaliers was a re-match of a hard-fought Friday night contest. Bossier scored the last four goals on Friday night to win that match 4-2.
In Saturday morning's match, the MCC Lady Eagles were led by goals from fullback Lindsey Key with a kick from 35 yards out and midfielder Katie Bergin picked up the other score for the Eagles on a penalty kick.
Bossier Parish scores came from fullback Jennifer Pistorius and forward Jackie Quinn. The tie gives the Lady Eagles a record of 5-3-2 overall. MCC will play at home against MACJC South Division foe Co-Lin Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Wallace-Hanceville 4
ECCC men 2
The second game of the day pitted coach Kenneth Thompson's ECCC Warriors against Mike Burke's 12-2 Wallace State Lions.
ECCC had a 1-0 lead going into the half but that slipped away as the Lions put four scores up on the board winning 4-2.
Wallace played very aggressive early on as it attempted to score seven times within the first 10 minutes of the contest. ECCC got huge defensive stops from sweeper Justin Sendelweck and defender Nate Alexander.
ECCC got a score on a great play with seven minutes from midfielder Brandon Ditto, who broke away from the defense to find wide open forward Charles Goodwin to put the Warriors on top 1-0.
Wallace State threatened to score with 1:35 left but the kick from midfielder Edwin Disand didn't connect.
At the half Lions' coach Mike Burke told his team, "that we have to keep moving the ball, the game was so physical and we had a lot of chances to convert, but we didn't."
Within three minutes the Lions struck first in the second half of play with midfielder Travis Massie making the assist to Josh Borak who found the open shot to tie the game a 1-1.
Borak struck again at 34 minutes with two defenders on him this time to give the Lions the lead 2-1.
Both teams were very aggressive as the Lions maintained control by attempting fourteen shots on the goal. ECCC battled but the Lions made things tough a Borak got his third goal with some help this time from midfielder Aaron Lessor. To put the game at a 3-1.
With just under ten minutes to play the Lions added their final score with Disang braking away from Warrior defender Kyle Miller to get the score at 4-1.
ECCC got their lone second half score with four minutes left as midfielder Robbie Phillpson took advatage of goalkeeper Eric Sower falling to cut the lead 4-2 which ended up being the final score. Wallace State improved to 13-2 and ECCC fell to (5-4-2).
MCC men 11
Itawamba 0
The MCC men knew going into Saturday's game they had to be mentally prepared.
The Eagles didn't waste any time against the winless Indians of Itawamba with midfielder Brian Stringer leading the way. Stringer was involved on three of the six scores in the first half finishing the day with three goals and two assists. Midfielder Brain Bledsoe also answered for the Eagles with three goals with the first one with 40 minutes left getting the assist from Stringer to give MCC the lead 1-0.
MCC jumped right back five minutes later with Stringer finding the head of midfielder John Irby to put the Eagles up 2-0.
Itawamba hurt themselves with a penalty that set up a fake kick by midfielder Brandon Culpepper who gave way to striker Kyle Boykin who put a huge foot on the ball to put the score up 3-0 with 28:00 left in the period.
MCC got scores from striker Benton Dufour and Stringer scored to pull the Indians out of reach 5-0. Stopper Troy Webb handled the assist from Stringer to put the score 6-0 going into the second period.
Things didn't let up for the Eagles. Rodgers led a nice drive finding Dufour who then found Bledsoe to put MCC up 7-0 with 39:41 remaining.
With 22:20 Stringer led the charge with a drive all on his own putting up the score to 8-0. Bledsoe added another score with 9:15 left making it 9-0.
Itawamba never going anything going and after the score they never got another chance to score. MCC capped the game off with a late score from fullback Heath Rush who blew past the defender and forward Michael Bernsen assisted Stringer for the final score of 11-0.
MCC improved to 5-5-2 and Itawamba remains winless at 0-9. MCC's next match will be Tuesday as they host Co-Lin in a key divisional match up at 6 p.m.