Miller’s late goal pushes Ads past Bearden 3-2
Using most of his body to control the ball is Farragut’s Aaron Smalling (17), as Bearden senior Caleb Wilkins looks to disrupt the Admirals ball control during this showdown of state-ranked Class AAA teams and district league champs at BHS’s Turner-Allender Field Friday evening, April 26. While the Soccer Dawgs twice rallied to tie this match, a late Admirals goal was the difference in a 3-2 Farragut victory.
The dramatic match was a 3-2 victory for the Admirals (13-2-1) as defender Nathan Miller scored the game-winning goal on a header in the 75th minute before a packed and spirited house at BHS’s Turner-Allender Field.
The winning marker came off a set piece when Alec Arnold placed a corner kick in the goal box. And it was just high enough for Miller to head the ball past Bearden goalkeeper Jonathan Diaz and into the back of the Bulldogs’ net.
“Alec gave me a perfect ball, and you’ve got to get your head on the corner like that, like it’s the last chance,” he said. “When it’s down like that, everybody’s thinking that. It could be the last chance of the game, you know.”
Bearden (12-2) went down a man when Asiimwe Ironside received a red card with 45 seconds remaining in the first half for making facial contact with Farragut’s Pablo Herrera.
Farragut took a 1-0 lead in the 36th minute of the match on a goal by Herrera.
“That was the same sport where Pablo scored from in the district semifinals a few years ago” as a sophomore, Admirals head coach Ray Dover said about a win ending Bearden’s season in 2017. “That’s his corner.”
“Even when they were a man down, this was still a really tough game,” Herrera said. “... This game is still a big win for us.”
Dover was pleased with the victory, but he wasn’t exactly thrilled with the second half.
Bearden got its first tally from Carter Turner in the 45th minute to knot the game 1-1.
Wes Jeter answered for the Ads to make it 2-1 in the 62nd minute, only to see Collin Lewis pull the Bulldogs even again in the 73rd minute.
“We gave a good effort but at the end of the day, we lost the game,” Lewis said. “We’ll learn from this and we’ll be better for it.”
“We knew about Pablo and we knew about Wes, yet we left both of them open,” Bearden head coach Ryan Radcliffe said. “You just can’t leave good players open in game like this. We did and it cost us.”
