From Coach Ed Berberich: The MCHS soccer Aces traveled to Newton, for a rematch of their 1st game of the season, coming away with a hard-fought 4-3 win. The Aces struck first, scoring in the 10th minute when Rayce Loudermilk finished an assist from Ethan Belt. Newton would respond with a goal of their own 4 minutes later to tie it up. The Aces regained the lead in the 21st minute on an unassisted goal from Belt. Loudermilk added to the lead on an assist from Aiden Garwood in the 30th minute, putting the score at 3-1 Aces at the half. The Eagles got it back to within 1 when, 6 minutes into the 2nd half, they scored on a corner kick. Loudermilk then gave the Aces a lift, and a small cushion, when he achieved a hat trick on a chipped shot over the Eagles goalkeeper in the 53rd minute of play, assisted by Garwood. Newton again clawed back into the game, scoring with 13 minutes left to make the score 4-3, after which the Aces held on defensively to take home the win. The Aces took 15 shots in the match with 9 on frame, had 9 chances created, and 10 interceptions. Tye Kanipe had 7 saves in goal. The Eagles took 16 shots on goal with 8 being on frame.

This was a tough match the whole way through. We did a better job with playing with intensity in this one than we had in our most recent match, against Harrisburg, so we were happy to see that. When we come out and play with aggression, we're going to give ourselves a good chance in any game. We gave up a little too much space in the midfield area, and struggled with handling some of the long balls Newton sent over the top, but otherwise did fairly well against a good team. They were fast on the counter-attack and were able to put some pressure on us in that regard. That style of play can give us some trouble at times because we want to be aggressive in attack and get players upfield for the numbers advantage up high. A team that's good on the counter, as Newton is, can take advantage of that at times. That said, we held up just enough and finished enough of our opportunities to be able to get a good win tonight. We won't get much time to enjoy it, or to rest up, as we have to turn around and play our 3rd match in as many days against Mt Vernon on Wednesday. This one took a bit out of us, but hopefully we'll have enough of our legs left to put in a good showing Wednesday.

The win puts the Aces record at 7-2 (3-0) on the season.