Published: October 05, 2008 01:43 am            

Model falls to Corbin, 5-1

RICHMOND — The Senior Day jinx reared its ugly head at Model Laboratory Saturday, as the Patriots dropped their final home game of the season, 5-1, to Corbin.

“The problem is, Senior Day is always a curse because everybody’s excited and it’s the last home game for the seniors,” Model coach Steve Savage said. “Everyone wants the seniors to score and all that stuff. They’re trying to set the seniors up and they forget about the game.”

Corbin scored in the opening minutes of the game, and then senior midfielder Mike Huff scored another goal for the Redhounds, putting the ball past Patriot goalkeeper Blake Neumann into the top right corner of the net. Senior midfielder Brian Muffly scored another goal off a corner kick before the 28-minute mark.

“The defense just made those three horrendous mistakes,” Savage said. “We actually had one ball where the fullback centered it out at the top of the goal box for the guy to shoot, which was as horrible to watch. It was something we did a lot last year. We haven’t done it much this year so it was good to see us clean it out of our game until today. The other two were defensive mistakes on our fullbacks, trying to mark three guys. We didn’t have much of a chance.”

Model had a few opportunities, including a shot on goal by freshman striker Hunter Conner that went over the goal. However, Corbin came out in the second half and scored quickly off of a penalty kick that senior midfielder Nick Huff put in the lower right corner of the goal.

Sophomore striker Josh Arnwine, who was being marked most of the game by senior midfielder Chad Haggard, finally was able to put one in the net halfway through the second half to prevent the shutout. He had another shot on goal that went over the net in the final minutes of the game.

“I’ve seen him hit that shot 100 times in practice,” Savage said. “When he’s in that position, I knew it was going to be a goal. He’s really fun to watch. He has a really good first step and uses his speed really well. He wasn’t the fastest guy out there but he creates some speed. He’s faster than he should be.”

Mike Huff was able to put another past Neumann off of an indirect free kick in the closing minutes.

“The team’s right on the cusp,” Savage said. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens. If we make some progress this week, we could be really good. They’re either going to just miss or they’re going to make it over the hump.”

Model (8-7-2), will go on the road next week to Scott County Tuesday and Bryan Station Thursday. They will return to Richmond for the district tournament, which will be played at Madison Central. The Patriots’ first game of the district tournament will be against Berea Oct. 14.

“The Bryan Station game should be a good warm-up for districts,” Savage said. “They’ve been playing really well defensively. We need to play against someone who tests our offense. Scott County’s in a rebuilding year and they wanted to play us so we scheduled them. Fortunately, we’re better than we were last year. Bryan Station will be a good tuneup for Berea.”

        

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