Bearcats end non-district play with big win in Benbrook

The Aledo Bearcats soccer team took to the pitch in Benbrook Friday, Jan. 20, for their final non-district match of the season against the hosting Bobcats. Aledo dominated the match, shutting out the home team en route to a 3-0 win.

The Bearcats boast a 6-1-4 record on the season as they prepare to enter District 5-5A action.

With several Bearcats sidelined with injuries in the recent weeks, it has been up to the younger members of the club to step up to carry the team forward.

They’ve done so with excellence, as the team record reflects. With the entire team finally healthy enough for action in the final match before district, the Bearcats looked to catch their stride heading into district play.

Jackson Tucker, Bruno Nogueira, and Adrian Solis each recorded their first goals of the season in the contest while Ethan Shelton picked up his first assist of the 2023 campaign.

“It was good. It was a good performance,” head coach Derek Vierling said after the match. “It was a good way to wrap up non-district.”

On the offensive end of the pitch the Bearcats’ pressure was relentless all night. Little more than 10 minutes into the match Aledo got on the board when Tucker put a header into the net off a corner kick as the visiting team jumped out to an early 1-0 lead with 29:12 left in the first half.

Solis tacked on another score for the Bearcats at the 15:03 mark in the first half after receiving the extra pass from Shelton before sneaking one past the Benbrook goalkeeper for the goal.

Coming out of the first half, Aledo continued to pressure the Bobcats in half number two. While Benbrook’s defense gave little resistance to the Bearcats, Benbrook’s goalkeeper, Joseph Borjas, played tremendously well in the face of an unrelenting onslaught on his goal.

With as many shots on goal as the Bearcats made in the second half, one more was bound to get through. That shot came with 21:17 remaining in the contest as Nogueira sent the ball across the far-left corner of the net out of reach of Borjas as he made an attempt to save the goal.

At the other end of the field Aledo’s defense set up an impenetrable wall the Bobcats could not exploit. A majority of the time the ball spent on the Bearcats’ side of mid field was just when Aledo took it there strategically to set up their next offensive barrage. Benbrook managed two breakaways in the entirety of the match, and did end up mustering a pair of shots on the Bearcats goal. However, keepers Zach Taylor and Deagan Dietz were able to secure both shots with relative ease and snuff out any potential rally the home team attempted.

“I thought we really possessed the ball well,” Vierling said after his team’s performance. “We had two saves – one from each keeper. They didn’t challenge us much. I felt very comfortable. We played every player we had tonight. We stayed healthy right before district, so that’s a positive.”