You know you’re having a pretty good offensive night when your goalkeeper gets an assist.
That’s what happened for the Tigers at Lebanon Thursday night, as they beat Lebanon 4-0 on the road to stay unbeaten on the young season. Armando Hurtado scored two goals and added an assist. Drew Flippin scored his first goal of the year to go along with an assist.
But the most unusual play of the night happened on a free kick from deep in Republic’s end of the field. Coach Kevin Hauck told goalkeeper Dalton Ghan to take the kick, and he booted it all the way to the other end of the field, where Dylan Brown corralled it and punched it into the goal. It was the fourth goal of the year for Brown, and the first assist for Ghan — probably, in fact, the first assist by a goalkeeper in the history of Republic’s program.
Even as the offense continued to cruise, the defense was nearly flawless in picking up the shutout, allowing just two shots on goal by Lebanon all night.
“I thought tonight we did a good job on connecting passes and moving the ball,” says coach Kevin Hauck. “We swung the ball through the defense to get into our attack, and it opened up the game for us. We won 50/50 balls and just performed very well.”
The Tigers are 2-0. They’ll be back on the field Friday, in their home opener against Springfield Catholic.