Written by Athletic Facilities Manager and Coach Jarrett Van Meter
The Asheville School boys’ soccer team moved to 2-0 on the young season with a 9-1 drubbing of Providence Academy on Tuesday afternoon. The win kept the Blues’ undefeated record intact and pushed the team’s combined scoring margin to 19-2 over the first two games.
It was a rare turf game for the soccer team. Soggy Bermuda grass on the team’s home field forced a relocation to McNaughton Stadium, which Head Coach Jeff Mettee believed worked in favor of his team’s style of play.
“Turf is an adjustment in terms of speed of play and the way the ball moves around the pitch,” said Mettee after the win. “We have a good amount of speed up top this year, so the turf works to our advantage.”
Asheville School’s speed was on display the entire afternoon. Junior Charlie Ahn knocked a shot off the Providence Academy crossbar less than three minutes into the game. The ball bounced through the scrum before fellow junior Declan Mettee darted through the crowd to cleanup his classmate’s miss and put the Blues up, 1-0.
Mettee would add another first half goal, joined in the first period scoring column by Andrew Han and reserve Andrew Holland, who added a goal apiece to give the Blues a 4-0 lead going into the break. Coach Mettee believes Holland’s emergence as a legitimate scoring threat over the first two games will benefit his group as tired legs set in over the coming weeks.
“Andrew is representative of the depth of our bench this year,” Mettee said of Holland. “Our roster is overrun by midfielders and the trick for us as a coaching staff is to balance play time and get the right players in the game to match up well against our opponents. Andrew’s scoring in the two opening matches has been a pleasant surprise.”
The Blues appeared to gain momentum in the second half as fatigue began to swallow the visiting Knights. The younger Mettee added two more second half goals to give him four for the game and an eye-popping total of ten for the young season. Han dribbled through seemingly the entire Providence Academy team to knock home his second score of the afternoon. Ahn got into the scoring mix after playing facilitator most of the afternoon, weaving through the backline of Knight defenders to score. Holland scored his second of the afternoon in the closing minutes to give Asheville School a 9-1 that would hold as the final score.
Despite a 2-0 record, Mettee acknowledged that blowout victories are not the most conducive to team growth and that maintaining good habits, no matter the opponent or setting, is the key to long-term success.
“We try to make it very clear that we haven’t been challenged yet, and as a coaching staff, we keep a very careful eye out for small chinks in the team’s player culture,” he said. “We try to stress to the boys that great teams take care of the details on and off the field. A team’s kiss of death can be as small as being overly relaxed about getting to practice on time or not keeping excellent track of equipment out on the practice field.”
The soccer team will hit the road on Friday to take on conference foe Asheville Christian Academy. The game is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m.