On Monday Jan. 11, Coppell varsity boys’ soccer played Euless Trinity High School for the first real game of the year and an intense one it was.
During the first half, Coppell was aggressive and kept the ball most of the time. While had a few chances to score, the ball mainly went passed the goal. Eight minutes into the game, senior captain Jordan Elgin stepped on number 10 Trojan and sprained his ankle. The injury, however, did not stop Elgin from playing the game.
“Trinity is not known to have a good soccer team but they were competitive and a good team to start the season with,” senior Colton Reese said.
While not an exciting first half, things got real interesting after half time. Early in the first half, about 5th minute into the second half junior Jake Garnett kicked the ball over the goalie’s head giving Coppell the first lead of the game. After a short celebration, Trinity got the ball and started moving fast into Cowboy territory. As number 12 player started to head to the goal, senior defensive player Brandon Donahue went to get the ball out of the box and accidently hit the player in the face. While no penalty was called, the Trinity team got real angry and started to show it on the field. After he was escorted off the field, Coppell got the ball and Trinity started to play real aggressive.
While the game was going on, number 12 came back in and went straight for Donahue and tried to start a fight with him. As teammates senior Kyler Hermanski and senior Joey McKillop came to break it up the fight, number 1 ran and hit McKillop hard in the chest and all players started yelling and running to the chaos. After the referees broke up the main fight, they gave red cards to McKillop number 1 and 12. While players 1 and 12 make sense since they were throwing the punches and starting the fight, McKillop was wrongly accused when all he tried to do was break it up.
After things started to settle down, the game started again with 24 minutes left. Many players played a little more cautiously after seeing the referees give out red cards but Coppell stayed aggressive and kept the ball in Trojan territory for most of the 24 minutes. Coppell had about three close goals before their second goal. Reese took the corner kick and made a quick pass to junior Will Simonds who crossed the ball to senior Jeremy Lind who headed it into the goal with 10 minutes left. Guaranteeing the win with that goal, the game quickly finished up giving Coppell their first real win of the season.
“It was definitely an interesting game to start the season but hopefully this win will lead to others,” Elgin said.
Coppell has a tournament in Garland this weekend. They are scheduled to play Mesquite Poteet, Austin Akins, and North Garland on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Depending on the record of those games, the team might play in the semifinals and finals on Saturday.
McKillop’s suspension could either be one to three games depending on the referee and Elgin possibly might not play this weekend’s tournament in order to fully recover for the rest of the season.
