Soccer team wins sectional title

The Wellington Dukes boys Soccer team played Rocky River High School in a Division II Sectional final game at Wellington High School on Saturday.

The game was expected to be a tightly contested match between teams as they both tried to keep their season alive in order to play at least one more game.

From the whistle, the Dukes put pressure on Rocky River and controlled the game in the middle of the field for most of the first half. Then with 16 minutes to go in the half, AJ Hyde scored the first goal for Wellington to make it 1-0. It did not take Wellington long to make it 2-0, when Ben Bogan crossed the ball in front of the goal and Will Pabst headed it in to make it 2-0 at 13:39. Wellington kept the pressure up for the remainder of the half, but could not pad its lead resulting in a first half score of 2-0.

The second half started with Rocky River playing a more physical game, and within the first two minutes scored two quick goals to tie the score. Wellington settled down and the rest of the half was played evenly with both teams having scoring opportunities. Each goalie made several saves to keep the score even at 2-2 for the remainder of the game.

With the game tied after 80 minutes of play, the game went into sudden death overtime. The clock was set at 15 minutes for the first overtime session, and the first team to score would win the game. Wellington won the coin flip, chose the end with the wind at their backs, and gave the ball to Rocky River. Then only 1:27 into the overtime period, Michael Coley took control of a ball in Rocky River's half of the field. He made a perfect pass to AJ Hyde, who went one-on-one with the goalie, and put it in the net to win the game 3-2. The celebration began as the Dukes earned the Sectional title. They move on to the District tournament and the chance to play the Bay Village Rockets. The District semi-final game is today at 7 p.m. at Bay Village High School.

The Dukes played host to the Midview High School boys soccer team on Saturday, Oct. 4. The Dukes took less than four minutes to score their first goal as AJ Hyde scored on an assist by Chris Coker.

The game was played evenly until AJ Hyde scored again with 6:52 left in the first half, and this time the assist came from Ben Pabst. Then with 4:36 left in the half, Andy Cianciola headed in a goal to make it 3-0.

The Dukes wasted little time to score again and with 3:21 left in the first half, Chris Coker scored with an assist from Michael Coley. This ended the first half scoring with Wellington up 4-0.

The second half went without any scoring until 32:12 left when Kyle Bartolovich headed the ball into the net on a great pass from AJ Hyde. With 27:44 to go in the second half Ben Pabst scored on a cross from AJ Hyde to make it 6-0. With this assist AJ Hyde broke the school record and gave him 46 assists for his career.

With all the good soccer players that have played soccer at Wellington High School, this was a great accomplishment. This was not the end of the scoring as Jaren Snyder scored with an assist from Matthew Coley with 25:55 left in the second half giving the Dukes a 7-0 lead.

The final score for the Dukes came at the 17:48 mark of the second half and Kyle Bartolovich scored on another header with the assist coming from Zeke Zeigler to make it 8-0. This improved Wellington's overall record to 10-3-1 and 6-0 in conference.