A strain of three goals in five minutes by the Grand Haven Buccaneers was eventual the cause of a second loss of the season for the boys varsity soccer team, as they fell to Grand Haven 5-1. Seniors Ethan Hale, JT Guntern, along with junior Matthew Mahoney shut down the quick Buccaneer forwards, but the center mids made up for all the scoring. Senior goalie Kyler Williams came up big despite the loss. Kyler made big saves throughout the game to keep Grand Haven from extending their lead. FHC hopes to gather itself defensively before hitting the road to begin conference play in the coming days. 

The Rangers started out hot like they did the previous game, with an offensive opportunity right out of the gate. Senior Micah Gschwind had a one on one opportunity with the keeper, but the Buccaneer goalie made a great save and prevented FHC going up early. But then, disaster struck for the Rangers defensively. What could’ve been 1-0 FHC turned to be 3-0 in favor of Grand Haven, as the Buccaneers scored three goals in just a few minutes. The Ranger defense did a great job of stopping the forwards attacking the goal, but Grand Haven just placed the ball in the perfect spot for their midfielders to score. 

As much as Grand Haven was scoring during that time period, FHC was still able to get its opportunities. A free-kick by Matthew hit the wall and Ethan gave Ben Taylor a perfect opportunity to put the Rangers on the board, but unfortunately, the goal was waved off because Ben was offsides. Matthew also had another free-kick to senior Sammy Postlewait who gave a great pass to Ben, but the Grand Haven goalie made the save. FHC went into halftime down 3-0. 

The Rangers looked like a completely different team in the second half. The defense stepped up to limit many Grand Haven offensive opportunities while turning stops into more offense at the other end of the field. Ethan, Matthew, and JT did a great job at winning balls and tackling well to get more offense going. Kyler Williams also made some big saves throughout the entire half to keep FHC’s hopes alive. 

However, two games in nineteen hours wore the team down, especially towards the tail end of the game. The Buccaneers scored two more goals in just the final five minutes to extend the lead to 5-0 off some miscommunications on defense. But in the final minute, Ben placed a nice pass to Sammy who finished with ease to cut the lead to 5-1. The time expired and FHC fell to Grand Haven 5-1. 

The loss puts the Rangers at 0-2 on the season, but FHC will need to quickly shift its attention to their first OK White conference game against the Northview Wildcats. The Rangers went 1-1 against Northview last year and will hope to start off conference play with a win on the road. To win in a couple of days, the team will need to work on communicating on defense and finishing at the net.