Fayette County defeats Valdosta in first round

By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@TheCitizenNews.com

The Fayette County varsity boys soccer team was the second seed in region 4-AAAAA, which meant starting the state playoffs at home. The Tigers did not disappoint their fans, defeating Valdosta 7-1.

The goal scoring started six minutes in, with a goal from senior midfielder Anthony Schwartz. Fayette kept a lot of pressure on Valdosta but played against the wind. Valdosta defenders would kick the ball out of their half of the field and would send their speedy strikers on runs deep into the Fayette County defense. Near the eight-minute mark, senior defender Josh Joslin made an incredible defensive stop from the net. Valdosta scored five minutes later to tie the game. The Tigers responded one minute later with a goal from senior Josh Partington and went into the half up 2-1.

The second half was all Fayette County and the first part of the half was all Bryan Collier. The senior and captain of the team scored less than six minutes in and then nabbed a second goal three minutes after that. Partington missed two goals, one off a header and one off a breakaway, and sophomore Chris Rawson just missed one as well, shooting over the net. Collier captured his hat trick just past the 20 minute mark off of an assit from freshman Ryan Whitehead. Whitehead then got a goal of his own roughly three minutes later to make it 6-1. Partington capped the Tiger’s scoring, as he got his second goal with 15 minutes left.

The Tigers will now play at Warner Robins at 5:30 p.m. Monday. A win would give them a home game against the winner of Chattahoochee/Brookwood. Warner Robins is 11-4-3 overall this season with three of those losses coming before the end of February. They have outscored their opponents 62-35 and finished their region schedule 7-0-2. Fayette County is 15-3-1, 7-1 in the region and has outscored their opponents this season 100-22.

Second round of AAAAA playoffs

Fayette County at Warner Robins

Monday, May 3, 5:30 p.m.