Clayton grabs control early, advances by Northern Durham in soccer

An early goal allowed the Clayton boys soccer team to dictate the tempo in its 4A North Carolina High School Athletic Association opening round game against Northern Durham and the Comets didn’t let up until they secured a 3-0 win over the Knights (12-10).

Stephen Ruiz pounced on a rebound from a Brandon Sainz shot that Northern goalie Carlos Salazar stopped in the fifth minute of play and easily slotted the ball into the back of the net for the quick advantage and forced the Knights to play catch-up all night long.

“That was huge, that was huge,” said Clayton coach John Asmussen. “It allowed us to get in control of the game and sit back for a second and try to dictate the pace of play.”

The Comets did just that en route to putting nine shots on frame in the first 40 minutes as opposed to Northern’s two such attempts, but the No. 29 seeded Knights from the PAC-6 Conference did threaten to take control back.

On two separate occasions in the first half, Northern managed to get behind the mostly uncooperative Clayton defense thanks to a pair of wall passes down the right flank. First Jon Cruz and Fabian Martinez paired up to get an open shot on goal and then the combination of Matt Cutler and T.J. Milby mimicked that same successful ball movement but, in both instances, the point blank shots were off target.

“The games that we’ve lost, the majority of them, come back to finishing,” Northern Durham coach Michael Tetreault said. “Like tonight, if we score on a couple of those chances early, it’s a different story. We created enough chances to win.”

Northern’s last great chance of the first half came with 14 seconds left when a Milby cross came to the foot of Danny Martinez. With the goal empty as a result of Clayton goalkeeper J.T. Palazzalo colliding with another Northern attacker, Martinez fired away but the shot hit off the post and away from danger.

With Northern forced to press numbers forward in the second half, the Comets (17-5) sealed the game on a quick counterattack when Juan Alvarado linked up with sophomore Dylan Sherron who touched the ball around Salazar before poking it into the goal for the 2-0 lead with 25 minutes left.

To complete the scoring, Tyler Duncan later took a short corner, the Comets’ tenth of the game, from Sainz and curled the ball inside the far post from a difficult angle for the Greater Neuse River Conference champions.

Salazar found himself busy for most of the night and was forced to come up with 12 saves to keep the Knights in the game.

Asmussen credited a pair of jayvee pull-ups in the shutout, Palazzalo’s fourth of the year, and their ability to have a positive impact on both ends of the field.

“We actually started a different lineup; we started a kid who has played jayvee all year just because he had good wheels — Oscar Mejia,” said Asmussen. “He really stepped up to the challenge; that’s a real tough stage for a jayvee player to come up and play.

“Then Dylan Sherron, who scored the second goal, he was a pull up from jayvee too so just for those two kids to really step up when the lights are on was huge for us.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2015 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Clayton grabs control early, advances by Northern Durham in soccer."