Pebblebrook Punches GHSA 7A Semifinals Ticket With 1-0 Win Over Roswell
On Tuesday, the Roswell Hornets boys soccer team hosted the Pebblebrook Falcons in a quarterfinals match up of the Georgia High School Association Class 7A state championship tournament and the game was not one to let down on excitement. Early in the contest, the Falcons were the aggressors attacking and almost successfully taking their first shot on goal within the first few minutes of the game.
Eventually, the Falcons would begin to break through the Hornets backline defenders to get several shots on goal, but great play by Brett Peterson in goal for Roswell would keep Pebblebrook off the board until about the 34th minute of the half, when Falcons’ midfielder, Rossvins Josil would connect on a goal to give Pebblebrook the 1-0 lead, which they would hold at the break.
In the second half, the Falcons continued to be aggressive as they would a few more good shots on goal but with Peterson still playing overall solid in goal, Pebblebrook would fail to connect for a score. The match would take a bit of a turn of events midway through the second half when Josil would be sidelined after receiving a yellow card and soon after, the Hornets would become the aggressors.
Looking to take advantage of Josil’s absence from the pitch, Roswell began control the field more and getting the touches they had been struggling to get early in the match and that would force the backline defense of Pebblebrook to step up as one of their best midfield defenders in Josil was on the sideline. “That was a tough loss,” Pebblebrook head coach Anton Banfield said of Josil picking up the yellow card.
“The backline understood that with that extra line of defense that’s missing in the middle, they needed to step it up a little bit more,” Banfield said after Tuesday’s win. Josil drew the yellow card with approximately 20 minutes to go in the half and the Hornets were almost in control of the field from the moment of his absence, but the Falcons’ did not let Banfield down, as they managed to keep the Hornets from scoring.
“They needed to dig deep,” Banfield added about his defenders as they dealt with losing Josil in the second half and holding on to pick up the 1-0 win, which will send the Falcons to the GHSA 7A semifinals where they will face Cobb County rival, Hillgrove. Over the next few days, Banfield says “following through and continuing to play hard” will be points of emphasis as they prepare for Hillgrove and although he wants his team to continue to have a defensive mindset, they’ll work on channeling the “offensive” a little more.
