The Bainbridge High School Bearcat soccer team defeated the Americus-Sumter Panthers in convincing fashion on Monday, April 15th by a score of 9-1 in Bainbridge at Centennial Field.

The Bearcats got off to an uncharacteristic sluggish start.  In fact, the Bearcats went down 1-0 in the ninth minute when the Panthers managed to convert a penalty kick opportunity.  At that point, a switch seemed to be flipped for the Bearcat team as they began to dominate possession and to pepper the Panther goal with shots. 

In fact, the Bearcats answered the Panther score in the tenth minute when Caleb Harris took a pass from Cesar Chiguil and finished in clinical fashion.  Harris also added two additional goals in the 23rd (assist to Cesar Chiguil) and 25th minutes to increase the score to 3-1. 

The Bearcats entered the locker room at half-time leading by that same score.  The onslaught of goals continued in the second half.  Adam Pascual opened up the second half scoring a goal in the 42nd minute (assisted by Caleb Harris).  After assisting on several goals, Cesar Chiguil got one of his own in the 44th minute after being assisted by Mason Ard. 

Chiguil added another goal in the 56th minute as well to increase the Bearcat lead to 6-1.  Alfredo Rodriguez added another goal in the 64th minute.  Jose Avalo increased the lead to 8-1 with a firecracker of a shot in the 74th minute after taking an assist from Luke Emmons, and Emmons scored a very special first goal as a varsity player in the 75th minute to complete the scoring for the evening.

Collin Morrison, Alex Soden, and Tom Emmons performed admirably on the back line of defense.  Nix McIntosh was quite the enforcer in the central midfield area, and Joe Emmons also played impressively on the evening in the central midfield area.  Angel Munoz looked dangerous attacking the goal on several occasions even though he did not have a goal to show for it on the evening.  Kendall Glover and Stokes Moore played valuable minutes and worked hard.  Bryce Jones was dominant in goal.  Also seeing playing time on the evening were the following players:  Tristan Brannan, Jesus Sanchez, Matt Hall, Daniel Victor, Arkeavious Marshall, Aiden Matthews, Ashton Matthews, Juan Escamilla, and Garrett Sigman.  In fact, every player on the roster who was not injured played valuable minutes during this match.

It was truly a dominating performance for the Bearcat team.  The players really seemed to take out a lot of pinned up frustration from some recent disappointing match results on Americus-Sumter.  With the win, the Bearcats remain on course to have a winning season.

The Bainbridge Bearcats dropped another match in region play in heartbreaking fashion to the Warner Robins Demons on Friday, April 12th by a score of 4-2.

The Bearcats started the match in dominating fashion as they controlled possession and created goal-scoring opportunities in the opening minutes of the match.  In the 12th minute, however, Warner Robins broke through for the opening score.  The Bearcats went right back to work as they did everything in their power to equalize the score.  Warner Robins held tough, though, and in the 18th minute, they were able to increase their lead to 2-0.  As the Bearcats have done all year long, they refused to go down without a fight, and in the 37th minute they finally broke through following a direct kick from Cesar Chiguil that found the back of the Warner Robins net.  The Bearcats went to half-time feeling confident having cut the lead to 2-1.  As the second half opened up, the Demons found themselves with a golden opportunity to increase the score after the match official determined that a Bearcat defender handled the ball in the box, which resulted in a penalty kick situation. 

The Demons did convert the opportunity to increase the lead to 3-1 in the 48th minute.  In the 56th minute, the Demons scored another goal to increase the lead to 4-1.  Again, the Bearcats attempted a rally when Caleb Harris scored in the 63rd minute to cut the lead to 4-2.  The Bearcats continued to compete in order equalize right up until the last seconds on the clock ticked away, but they were simply unable to muster a comeback on the night.  The loss eliminated the team from state play-off contention.

Coaches Rick Lewis and Jamie Ard agreed that the result was very disappointing, but they were not at all disappointed with the team’s effort on this night or on any other night.  Through every match, win or loss, they both stated that they felt like the team went out and played with great determination and put forth great effort to be successful.  Unfortunately, their efforts were not always rewarded during the course of the season.

Although the team will not participate in state play-offs, a winning season is still possible as the team finishes out their scheduled matches this week with non-region opponents.  Both coaches admit that not reaching the team’s goal of making the state play-offs is disappointing, but another team goal was to have a winning season, and that is still a possibility.  Posting a winning regular season record would be an indication of much progress being made towards reaching that goal even though the team fell one game short of making the play-offs.