TUNNEL HILL — The first half of Friday’s Class 4A boys soccer second round playoff game between Northwest Whitfield and Cedar Shoals was played without any goals.
After halftime, the fireworks began.
Northwest Whitfield (8-7-4) piled up four second-half goals to defeat Cedar Shoals (11-4-2) 4-1 in the second round of the state playoffs on Friday night.
Despite entering the playoffs as a third seed, the Bruins are bound for the Class 4A Elite 8. Northwest hosted Friday’s game since Cedar Shaols was a fourth seed, and the Bruins will get to play at home again in the next round. Northwest will host LaGrange, also a third-seeded team, in the state quarterfinals on Tuesday.
After 40 minutes of first-half play went by without a goal, the Bruins needed less than seven minutes in the second half to finally get on the scoreboard.
Connor Stiles scored the first of his two goals with 33:32 left in the game, and JJ Plaza made it 2-0 with 24:31 left.
Plaza’s goal came after the Cedar Shoals keeper made a sliding kick save on a Matthew Molina shot. The ball batted wide, and Plaza ran it down and managed to send it past a defender and into the empty net.
The two-goal lead was short-lived, though, and the visitors coaxed in their lone goal of the game just 32 seconds later.
After the scoreless first half, the Bruins peppered several scoring chances in the second. With 18 minutes left, Molina charged to a ball and chipped it over the Cedar Shoals keeper, who came sprinting out of the net after the ball. The shot trickled just a little wide. A minute later, Stiles got a shot off with just the keeper in front, but the goalie managed to trap the ball before it went in.
With 13:26 to play, Stiles broke through for his second and restored the two-goal lead. Chris Tapia booted a free kick from midfield, and arced it perfectly to Stiles standing in front of the net. The tall forward timed a leap and headed the ball in past the keeper to make the score 3-1.
Northwest likely didn’t need any more breaks to come away with the win, but the Bruins got to play the final 12 minutes up two men.
A Cedar Shoals player was shown a second yellow card after a hard tripping foul on a Bruin player and was disqualified. A shoving match broke out after the call, and the instigating Cedar Shoals player, who sprinted across the field toward a Bruin, was also shown a red and tossed.
Molina, after the near misses earlier, took advantage of the two-man numbers advantage to score the sealing goal.
A steal in front of the net was passed to Molina, who beat the last defender in front of him and sent the ball into the net with 7:46 left.
The Bruins came into the playoffs with a losing record after a schedule filled with tough region and non-region competition, and the slate has paid dividends for Northwest as it reaches the Elite 8. The Bruins will face a LaGrange team that beat Southeast Bulloch 7-2 in the second round Friday.