Bristol Rhythm soured in the final minutes of a hard-fought loss to Hickory

BRISTOL, Va. – The pace of this night soured in the last minutes.

As the clock ticked down, Bristol Rhythm AFC appeared on the verge of not only snapping a six-game skid, but also pulling off an upset of North Carolina’s 24th-ranked Hickory FC in National Premier Soccer. League on a gloomy Saturday night in front of 573 spectators at Gene Malcolm Stadium.

“For 86 minutes we were the better team,” said Bristol forward Joe McMahon, a native of Liverpool, England, who plays at the University of Mobile in Alabama. “Those 86 minutes were the best we’ve played all year. We couldn’t finish it… We gave everything. The game on this pitch isn’t the best either. It’s very small, so it’s just a lot of back. and then we played well today 86 minutes, 2-1 we and then we threw it in the last 10 minutes.

Bristol took a 2-1 lead on a terrific header into the net by King University graduate Riley Moore off a long free kick from 50 yards out by Emory & Henry athlete Grayson Cunningham as the clock ticked down to hold down. Hickory fought back with a valiant effort to earn an improbable 3-2 victory in regulation.

“These guys are in the top 25 in the nation and you can tell that today,” said Bristol Rhythm head coach Louis Sharp, who is also an assistant coach at King. “We took them to the end. … That shows their mentality and credit to them. It shows why they’re competing for the top of the conference and competing for the top of the nation.”

Hickory took advantage of a tactical change by Bristol to tie it 2-2 on a Diego Fernandez (Mars Hill) breakaway in overtime and followed it up less than two minutes later when Tomas Pollacchi (Emmanuel ) scored on another escape that got away. East Tennessee State goalie and Rhythm Sam McGee.

“We went from the highest to the highest with about five minutes to the lowest of the lowest with about two minutes to go,” Sharp said.

Scoring has been an issue all season for Rhythm (1-8-0), who came in having scored just five goals in eight games and none in their last two games. Biokaego (Stooge) Mbaakanyi, a native of Botswana and Milligan rising senior, scored his team-leading third goal of the season on a terrific header off a Nate Lengyel corner kick. to score 1-1 in the 31st minute of the first half.

“Two great headed goals. The first goal, you know how Stooge is, he’s in the box and he’s always sneaking around. He’s got some bounce on him too, he came down and you saw it go in,” Sharp said. “The guy my Riley, I’ve known Riley for four years, I coached him at King’s for three years, I brought him here, great kid, I’m so happy he scored the goal but I’m sad he’s not on the winning side .

“It would have been a great story for him. I know his family come to every game so I’m sure they were very happy to see him get on the pitch and score a goal, but they would have been happy if we had won the game as well.”

Spanish talent John Osadolor (Francis Marion) had put Hickory up 1-0 in the 27th minute of the first half. Bristol scored the next two goals against goalie Jasper Rump (Lake Erie College), but Hickory (6-2-1) made the game short as the relentless humidity may have taken its toll.

“All we had to do — and I’m kicking myself — was hang together in the last five minutes of the game,” said Adam Cooil, originally from the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom. “The fatigue has set in. I don’t know. I’m speechless, I hate to leave disappointed. Obviously I’m the captain, people are looking at me. I didn’t hold up in the last five minutes, I could have done better, but we’re a team We win together and lose together.

“We were just hoping that we would get a good result this week because we played brilliantly and it’s gut-wrenching. We’re going forward and hopefully we’ll get the result in the next game.”

Hickory (6-2-1) moved from fourth to second in the NPSL Southeastern Conference standings, while Bristol dropped to a seventh-place tie with Port City FC (Wilmington, NC), the only team the Rhythm beat her this season.

“It’s a real tough one,” said Bristol defensive end Archie Day, a native of Rotherham, England, who plays collegiately at Merrimack near Boston. “When you score an equalizer in the 86th minute, you don’t expect to lose, but I think it happens. It’s football, you can’t do anything about it. You move on to the next game and we’ve got to win next week.”

Playing in near sweltering heat for the second Saturday in a row in Bristol wasn’t easy for anyone, but especially for Day, whose name was often called after key tracks for Rhythm.

“It’s really hot. I’m not used to it, especially being from England and Boston. It was snowing the day I left Boston. It was still cold, it’s really hard to get through,” Day said. “I like to do my job on defense. You have to play hard to win, so that’s what I do.”

Even though Bristol lost 1-0 in a rematch with 865 Alliance on Wednesday in Knoxville, Sharp said he made some adjustments to try to spark the offense and it seemed to work against Hickory on several occasions, but Rhythm could only get two balls. beside Croup.

“It was great to finally put the ball in the back of the net. That’s been our problem all year,” Sharp said. “I worked hard in training every day. I think that lineup change from the last two games has really helped us.

“The feedback we’ve had from the boys this season is that we can play but maybe our forwards are a bit too high because everyone is looking to press and so we’ve tweaked the formation and it’s seemed to help us a lot. We had several bodies in the middle of the field. You’ve seen when we go out wide and get hitters behind them, we’re dangerous.

Ask ‘Captain Cooil’ – as the announcer calls him – about the dangers of football. He was hit hard in the face by a ball that was hit from a late match.

“I kind of got stuck for a few seconds,” said Cooil, who will transfer from the University of Mobile in Alabama to continue his collegiate career at Belmont Abbey in North Carolina. “I also hit the back of my head and the trainer was checking me for a concussion and I said, ‘I’m fine, just shaking.’ I’m fine now, I’m fine.”

Cooil, whose parents flew from the UK to see him play, missed out on Wednesday when Cooil had to sit out that game after picking up a red card in last Saturday’s defeat to 865 Alliance. Fortunately, they got to see him play tonight.

“It was supposed to be a two-game ban,” Cooil said. “I appealed, it was reviewed and I was able to play in front of my parents tonight after they flew up here so they didn’t miss out on seeing me play so mum and dad made it special , but I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t get the result we wanted.”

Sharp, whose Rhythm will play their season finale next Saturday at Greenville United in South Carolina, was as disappointed as the players who signed autographs and took photos with fans in what was the team’s home finale from the first year.

“At least we got some goals today, but I was hoping to give the fans something to cheer for at the end of the game,” Sharp said. “That’s football. This is life. It’s a great life lesson, especially for young guys. If things don’t work out, I would tell them that this won’t be the worst thing that will happen to you in life. That’s part of life for sure, so it’s a good life lesson for the boys.

“We’ll go again next week, the last game of the season, and hopefully get that win on the board.”