Soccer Bucs and Hawks battle to 0-0 deadlock

Duane Carpenter
October 10, 2021

TENNERTON – Eighty minutes of action wasn’t enough to produce a winner between the Buckhannon-Upshur soccer Bucs and University Hawks in a non-conference soccer clash Saturday afternoon at the high school.

The two teams were able to put 15 shots-on-goal, Buckhannon-Upshur eight and University seven, but neither team could find the back of the net in the 0-0 tie.

“Today was a great match with what’s been building into a great respectful rivalry over the best few years,” stated Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Mike Donato. “Since we’ve been in the same sectional we’ve always had great and entertaining games with University. Coach (Michael) Smith has a young and scrappy team and came out and tested us right from the start.”

While the Bucs had a lead in shots-on-goal, University held a 4-1 advantage in corner kicks.

The Bucs were guilty of four fouls while the Hawks were called for nine.

B-U keeper Dalton Auvil made seven saves on a his clean sheet while University goalie Connor Montgomery stopped eight shots.

The Bucs did see the return of captain Julien Larcher to the field after missing the last B-U game with Lewis County on Thursday, but the Bucs are still missing some key players.

“We did get Julien back for this game, but we were still without Noah Radabaugh and Owen Cutright, so we had some young guys step up and keep us in this game,” stated Donato. “I told our guys after this game that we’ve really started to play great soccer in the past two games and if we can start piecing things together in our final game on Tuesday, we should be ready to make a good playoff push.”