Jim Walker

jim.walker@irontontribune.com

 

In soccer, you can win, lose or tie. The St. Joseph Flyers experienced all of those results in one week.

The Flyers opened their season with a 3-1 win against Greenup County on Monday.

Blake Balestra, Tre Neal and Alex Ward all scored goals for the Flyers. Neal’s goal came off an assist from Wulf Goheen.

Goalkeeper Joey Bush had eight saves and the Flyers — who led 1-0 at the half — had 31 shots on goal compared to 14 for Greenup County.

St. Joseph also had five corner kicks and the Musketeers seven. The Flyers had five offside penalties and Greenup none.

“It was a complete team effort and the boys played well,” said Flyers’ coach Mike Balestra.

“We capitalized on the opportunities Greenup County gave us and our offense was aggressive. Our defense played very well giving up only a goal late in the game.”

The Flyers played Northwest on Tuesday and lost 4-1.

Neal had the lone goal for the Flyers with an assist from Cole Willis.

Bush had 10 saves as the Flyers had 12 shots on goal to 28 for Northwest. The Mohawks also had a corner kick. St. Joseph had six offside penalties and Northwest none.

The game was a scoreless tie at the half.

“The contest was closer than the final score indicates,” said coach Balestra. “It was tied 1-1 with less than 20 minutes to go and we were down 2-1 with under 10 minutes left. We lost our composure and the outcome was evident.”

On Thursday, the Flyers battled Portsmouth West to a scoreless tie.

Bradley Rist had eight saves as the goalie and the Flyers had 23 shots on goal to 14 for West. St. Joseph had six corner kicks and West had one.

“Our defensive backfield of Joe Bush, Chris Lewis, Clay Willis and Trey Young had an excellent game,” said coach Balestra.

“Our offensive attack was aggressive, but we didn’t capitalize on the opportunities Portsmouth West gave us. We kept the ball on our offensive half most of the game but just couldn’t finish.”