Brown's goals lift Rams past Red Raiders, 2-0
BY DERRICK BALINSKY EVENING TRIBUNE

HORNELL - Add another chapter to the evergrowing Bath-Hornell rivalry. Wednesday evening, Sept. 19, it was the Rams who got the better of the Red Raiders, breaking a 1-1 halftime tie with an early second-half goal to pick up a 2-1 Livingston County Athletic Association Division I boys' soccer victory on the artificial turf surface at Maple City Park.

"Any time you can win over here it's huge," Bath head coach Matt Hill said after the game. "I thought we worked hard the entire game. We played hard for 90 minutes and in some of the games this year we haven't done that. For the most part, everyone who stepped out on the field gave 100 percent."

The Rams Justin Brown scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal approximately five minutes into the second half. Brown beat the Hornell defense down the middle on what appeared to be a normal breakaway situation. However, according to Tobin, the far sideline official apparently blew his whistle on what the coach possibly felt should have been an offsides call.

"I said to the kids, 'this is a good wake-up call.' We've cruised. We haven't been pushed and we got pushed today and we didn't really respond as well as I was hoping to," Hornell head coach Jim Tobin said. "They came out and sort of set the tone over the first 20 minutes. We settled down after that and played some pretty good soccer. We just couldn't get one in. Tonight, Bath deserves a lot of credit. They did what they had to do, and they got out of here with a good victory. We'll learn from this and we'll become a better team."

"We just missed some close ones and their keeper made a couple of big saves," Tobin said. "They had one kid clear a ball right of the line and Kyle hit a shot headed right for the corner and one of their defenders got in great position to save them a goal. Great positioning and great defense on their part."

The Raiders countered with just over 25 minutes to play in the first half when Daniel Orozco netted a pass from Josh Canfield. The score remained tied going into the halftime intermission.

"The first half was pretty even," Hill said. "We maybe got our heads down for a tiny bit after they scored their first goal. When the second half started we came back out ready to play, and after we scored, we kind of went defensive. It's nothing I instructed them to do, we just ended up doing it - I guess that's how it works, although we probably needed to do that at the time."

Rossi collected nine saves between the posts, including two down the stretch to help preserve the Rams victory. Bath improves to 7-1.

"Mike did a tremendous job, he's been doing it all year long," Hill said.

Kevin McAllister finished with a pair of saves for Hornell.