Campbell stays on course for return trip to finals, defeats Discovery 5-0, advancing to semifinals

As the Georgia high school association boys soccer state championship tournament resumed on Tuesday, the Campbell Spartans hosted the Discovery Titans in the Class 6A quarterfinals as the Spartans looked to keep their hopes of returning to the title game alive.

With the first half underway, the Spartans would strike first and early as junior Miles Russell connected on the first of his two goals with just over four minutes of play having ticketed off the clock and Campbell taking a 1-0 lead.

As the half continued, the Spartans would control the pitch throughout the period, getting several shots on goal before Russell would eventually score his second goal of the night to give Campbell the 2-0 lead. Keeping momentum in the second half, the Spartans third goal would come courtesy of a cross by Scott Carpenter to Jaycee Carpenter who would give Campbell the 3-0 lead.

As the half would begin to wind down and the Spartans in control, they would tack on two more goals as Jonathan Alvarez's first varsity goal of the season would give Campbell a 4-0 lead and a late Henry Schlichting goal would help the Spartans pick up the 5-0 win to advance to the GHSA 6A semifinals.

"We put emphasis on not losing the ball in dangerous areas," Campbell head coach, Troy Connolly said after Tuesday's win as he credited his players for how well they executed their game plan throughout the match. "We worked on it a ton, especially the tale end of the season. Not shooting ourselves in the foot," Connolly said, acknowledging past experience also helped lead the Spartans into the semifinals.

"This is the fifth year in a row we've made it to at least the elite eight and that's testament to the talent, that's a testament to the coaching staff that we've built here," Connolly added as he spoke on the success the Spartans' program has had the past few seasons. Now Campbell will take on Duluth on Friday in hopes to returning to the finals for the second year in a row.