Mountain Ridge beats Fort Hill, 2-0, to close regular season

Oct. 22—CUMBERLAND — Mountain Ridge scored a decisive 2-0 victory over Fort Hill to close the regular season at Greenway Avenue Stadium on Thursday night.

"It was a slow start tonight," Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. "We didn't play our best, especially in the first half. (Will) Stark's goal really helped, and that was a great shot with the left foot.

"We played better in the second half. We're going to get ready on Saturday to roll into the playoffs. We've got to really work hard and press and really connect our passes and work on our touch. Just work on all facets of the game."

As the rain picked up in intensity over the final minutes of the contest, so too did the Miners' offense. After a flurry of point-blank chances, Drew Haberlein connected with Mason Reed on a corner kick with 4:40 left to put the game to bed.

"Mason made an audible call there on our second goal, where he wanted the ball up and he went up and won it," Nightengale said. "Put it in the back of the net."

Mountain Ridge's first goal arrived with similar urgency. With 2:31 remaining in the opening half, Reed crossed the ball to Will Stark near the top of the penalty box.

Stark spun to his left to evade an oncoming Sentinel defender, took a touch and buried a hard shot into the top right corner past Fort Hill keeper Jacob Tichnell, who stood no chance.

"We played pretty slow in the first half, we didn't play as good as we should have," Reed said. "It was nice to get that goal from Stark, and then we started off the second half strong and we just kept going at them and going at them. It helped that we started to win the 50-50 balls."

Despite the tenacious effort of the Fort Hill backs and Tichnell, the Miners' victory was decisive.

Mountain Ridge attempted 20 shots, with eight ending up on frame, while the Sentinels had just one all night. The quality of the Miners' attempts at goal wavered at times, but the disparity was indicative of how much they had the ball in Fort Hill's half.

"The more chances we get, the more times we'll score," Mountain Ridge forward Tanner Lohnas said. "As long as we finish."

The Sentinels' one shot attempt was a good one.

Around the 20:15 mark of the opening half, Connor Hipp struck a laser from well outside the box that just clipped the top of the post. Fort Hill coach Zach Steckman believed the shot may have crossed the goal line.

Either way, the Sentinels did well to hang tough against the Area's top soccer team, especially after a pair of disappointing defeats, 1-0 and 3-1, to Southern in the past week-and-a-half.

"Our guys have been playing really well," Steckman said. "We were flat twice against Southern, but we came out tonight, we had a good game plan, and we thought we executed it really well to our strengths. Ridge is a very good team, one of the best in the Area, one of the best in the state. To compete with them again, it's a big confidence boost for us heading into the playoffs."

Fort Hill finished the regular season 7-6-1 and will play Northern again on Wednesday at home in the region quarterfinals, with the winner taking on the Miners.

Hipp has been a crucial piece of Fort Hill's resurgence.

"Connor Hipp has really turned it on in the last couple weeks," Steckman said. "We made a position change, we took him out of the midfield and put him at striker, and it really got his confidence going, got him in better positions to score.

"When he gets in front of goal, he's a finishing machine, and he's very good at putting the ball in the back of the net."

In goal, Tichnell delivered his usual handful of impressive saves. In one sequence, Reed had a close-range chance, and the senior keeper reacted to deflect it away. The Miners were there to head the rebound on goal, and Tichnell leaped high and got his paw on the dangerous opportunity to poke it away.

Tichnell finished with six saves, and Mountain Ridge keeper Eathan Ashenfelter didn't make any for the clean sheet.

Mountain Ridge finished the regular season 13-1 — and it's undefeated in state-recognized games with the Miners' lone defeat coming in a tournament to Brunswick.

The defending 1A state champs are still the team to beat.

"We're confident, we played well all season, finished as the top seed, and now we have five games left (for a state title)," Ashenfelter said.

Alex Rychwalski is a sports reporter at the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @arychwal.