Stratford boys shut out FPD and pull away with two late goals for 3-0 rivalry win

For about 76 minutes, it was a one-goal game.

For Stratford head coach Iain Jones, it didn’t feel like a one-goal game.

“Clearly, we controlled the game,” he said. “We knew what we needed to do and which players to shut down. I wasn’t too concerned whether we were going to win the game or not as the game went on. I just felt like that second goal was going to come.”

It did, but not for a while. Drew Southerland put it in from the right side late before John Putzke added another goal less than 90 seconds later to give Stratford a 3-0 win Tuesday night over host FPD.

Jones was happy with the breadth of quality play from the undefeated Eagles.

“We’ve got some really good, young players that stepped up tonight,” he said. “John Putzke, fantastic player. Stebin Horne came off the bench, gave us that early lead. Then Brady Flournoy, he’s struggled in the last few games, but he’s getting himself involved in games and creating some problems for teams.”

Horne squeezed in a shot to the right side of the net 12 minutes into the game, and the possession battle continued. Jones wasn’t stressing at intermission.

“I have faith in our back line and our freshman goalkeeper, who had a tremendous game,” he said. “They never really were threatening. What I told them at halftime is to be patient, that second goal’s going to come, and it’s going to come when they least expect it.

“That’s what we got. We caught them on the break, and that’s what we were waiting for.”

First-year FPD head coach Seth Semones took the blame for the two late goals.

“Sometimes you’ve got to gamble a little bit,” he said after falling to 2-7 while starting to get some injured players back to a young team. “I was shifting players around trying to give us more on the attack. I call them coaching errors because I shifted the game around in order to potentially gamble.”

He pulled two defenders for offense, and Stratford took advantage.

Still, despite the shutout and late clinchers, Semones had few complaints.

“The boys battled harder than they have all season,” he said. “I’m super stoked about the energy that they put into this match.

“It really showed … also the work that we’ve been putting in. Everything up to this point has kind of led to tonight. I’m very proud of the boys.”“We took our lickings tonight, and as you take them, I think we learned and grew from them.”

Jones continues to prepare his team to get that kind of opposing effort every time out.“I’ve been telling the guys since the fall that every team is going to come out for us because we’re the hunted,” he said. “We’ve got a target on our back. When it comes to the Macon schools, when it comes to soccer, it’s always been a target on our back.”