It’s been feast or famine in terms of goal scoring for the Olentangy boys soccer team this season.
In Thursday night’s non-league showdown against visiting Worthington Kilbourne, the Braves feasted on a pair of quick first-half goals on the way to a 3-0 win in Lewis Center.
Olentangy, which evened its record (2-2) with the win, has scored a combined eight goals in its two wins and has been held scoreless in both losses. Olentangy’s two losses came against Dublin Coffman and Dublin Jerome.
“(Thursday night) we played a full soccer game,” Olentangy coach Pat Shick said. “It’s hard against teams like Jerome or Coffman because their level of soccer is so high. It came together (Thursday night) against a team that beat Jerome.”
“The last few games have been kind of rough for us,” Olentangy senior Rohan Charles said. “(After that), we were like, ‘we gotta win this.’”
Nick Miller was Olentangy’s catalyst, setting up all three Olentangy goals, two of which were scored by Charles.
“He’s such a solid player in the middle … he’s a distributor,” Charles said. “Those goals aren’t my goals if not for him.”
Miller placed a corner kick from the left corner on the right post that allowed Jackson Tomsic to head it home on a dive and Olentangy led 1-0 with 25:45 left in the first half.
“He’s very effective when he has it at his feet,” Shick said.
Just over four minutes later, Miller casually sent a ball about 20 yards over the defense to Charles.
Charles’ initial shot was saved by Kilbourne goalie Jason Bowen, but he stuck with it and hammered the rebound through to push the lead to 2-0.
“(Charles) had one of those nights that’s just fun to see,” Shick said. “He’s fast — his mile times when we do testing at the beginning of the year were the fastest on the team. It’s so easy to just throw him on the outside and let him run. He just tracks balls down like crazy.”
Miller’s right to left cross pass found Charles’ head for Olentangy’s third goal just over 10 minutes into the second half.
“(Charles) is a player when things start going right, all of a sudden, nothing is going wrong,” Shick said. “That’s what started happening, so we kept him in longer. Sometimes things go right for players and they just can’t miss.”
This all came after Charles had a couple of cracks at Bowen early in the first half, but came up empty.
He beat the defense on the right side and seemingly had Bowen dead to rights, but Bowen leaped and knocked Charles’ shot out of bounds to keep the game scoreless about seven minutes in.
Charles had a chance on the ensuing corner kick, but Bowen was able to knock his header away. Miller, as a result, had an open shot from in front, but he sent his shot off the crossbar and Olentangy came away with nothing.
Olentangy goalies Trent Trees and Will Yorke combined for the shutout.
Next up, the Braves visit Upper Arlington in non-league action Tuesday night at 7:15 p.m.
