Confusing play does little to aid Hawks in 2-0 loss to Warriors

“Thar she blows!”One moment the Hiland Hawks were preparing for an attempt to even the score with arch rival Worthington Christian, a team which has beaten, battered and bruised the Hawks in Regional soccer play over the past decade.The next moment they were staring at a monumental mountain.The culprit in this contest wasn’t the play of the Hawks, who showed plenty of spunk in battling the Warriors evenly throughout most of their Div. III Zanesville Regional soccer game. Although they played gamely, Hiland fell 2-0 in a recurring theme for Scott Bodiker’s group.While nobody ever wants to blame an official, what happened to the Hawks to begin the second half was basically akin to giving Worthington Christian a free penalty kick.Trailing 1-0 on a Warriors goal by superstar Sam Condon with about eight minutes to play in the first half, Hiland aggressively attacked the goal to begin the second half, looking to even things up.The Hawks’ Hunter Herrera nearly poked in a goal on the first attack of the half for Hiland that ended up as a corner kick attempt. Down a goal, a couple of Hiland Hawks defenders were playing forward in hopes to gain numbers on the set play scoring chance. A Hiland shot went wide and looked as if it was tipped by a Warriors defender, resulting in the line judge pointing to the corner flag signifying the corner.The Hiland defenders stayed in the Warriors penalty area thinking they were setting up for another corner kick. Instead the center official ruled goal kick, and the Warriors keeper quickly made a smart play and blasted a goal kick up to Condon, as the Hiland defense scrambled to recover.It never did.Condon navigated past Braxton Mullet and was mano a mano with Hiland keeper Taylor Raber. With no help back, Condon had no trouble netting the game’s second goal.Whether or not the call was proper was not the issue.The fact that the official had allowed such an egregious tactical error by allowing Hiland to set up for a corner only to have the Warriors quickly snatch the ball and crush it downfield as Hiland’s defense was pulled up for a corner was Bodiker’s bone of contention.He went ballistic, his laments falling on deaf ears, and the Hawks were now in a huge hole.“Nice goal from them in the first half,” said Bodiker. “The second half they had one really good chance and that was the goal that they scored. That was a real back-breaker to give up that second goal with that kind of circumstance. That sequence was so frustrating because we just had a great chance to score at our end. In fact, we might have had more good chances the second half than them really.”Hiland battled. That goal could have demoralized them, but they hung in there and even forced the issue at times in the second half, putting a great deal of pressure on Worthington Christian’s defense.But as has been the case much of the year, the Hawks simply couldn’t find the back of the net. The result, another powerfully disheartening loss to the Warriors.The win marks the seventh time the Warriors have ousted the Hawks from the state tournament in Regional play.“Of course it’s frustrating,” said Bodiker. “All you do is give yourself a shot and hope at sometime that it is going to happen. When it does it will be that much sweeter and it would be nice if it was them (WC).”The Hawks’ shot at it this time came up short, but their effort did not. Hiland, at times controlled, and even dominated the play in spurts during the second half. Hiland may have had more quality chances to score in the second half and in the match.That does little to take away the sting of another loss to Worthington Christian.“We played okay most of the game today,” said Bodiker. “In the end they controlled the ball a little more than we did, but they didn’t create a ton of great chances and we had a couple of decent ones.”The problem was the Warriors’ chances were finished by Condon.Condon scored with 8:12 left in the first half when they finally were able to penetrate the tough Hiland defense. Condon took a cross and settled it nicely on the turf, took two touches and placed a goal nicely behind Hawks keeper Tyler Hochstetler.It wasn’t even 10 minutes later, on the game clock, that Condon scored again just 1:19 into the second half after a great Hawks chance.The Hawks played the rest of the match strongly, getting the majority of the offensive chances, including a Josh Phillips header with just over 20 minutes to play. The WC goalkeeper made a full extension dive save on the header and kept his team up two goals. Colin Blochlinger also sailed a shot just wide with nine minutes to play that almost gave the Hawks a chance to get back in the game.Hiland finishes the season 14-4-3, another successful season and another season that will see a great class of seniors part.Bodiker had many kind words for the departing six.“This is six kids that have done everything we have asked of them, have never been one ounce of trouble, in any way, in six years and are just good, good kids,” said Bodiker. “When you have kids that represent your program like that, you’re proud of them win or lose.”