Coach Kilby earns his Cape wings as soccer beats Parkside and Bennett

Cape boys' soccer coach Patrick Kilby flew two combat sorties over Salisbury Sept. 5 and came back with both wings, flying high to beat Parkside 3-2 and coming back later in the day to best Bennett High School 2-1. The competition was all part of the Paint Branch Tournament played at Parkside High School.

The Vikings, who hadn’t yielded a goal the entire preseason, were down 2-0 at halftime to Parkside in spite of a 20-8 shots-on-goal advantage for the game.

Drew Mulcahy scored at the 53-minute mark of the 80-minute game off an assist from Jack Ashby to tighten down the game 2-1. Five minutes later, Ashby struck off an assist from Joao Ferreira to knot the score at 2-2.

Ashby buzzed the Parkside goal on a final strafing run to ring the victory bell on an assist from Tyler Malloy for the 3-2 game winner.

Coach Kilby summed up the victory: "We were down 1-0 in the first two minutes. Our back line did not play well the first 40 minutes. We made tons of technical mistakes. We misjudged balls in the air to the point where we headed them backward toward our defensive goal.

"The first goal Parkside scored was a ball played in behind Luke Mulcahy, and we did not have layers to support him. It created a one-versus-one with Parkside's best player [and goalkeeper] Noah Clifton. Needless to say we ended up on the wrong side of that exchange. Parkside scored again in the 33rd minute. Again, it was a poor effort and lack of organization on the back line.”

Cape reconfigured its alignment in the second half and started Zack Gelof at the high striker position and Tyler Malloy at the left forward position.

"I told them to attack,” Kilby said. “Tyler Nichols did an excellent job filling at the left back position [for Malloy] and Aidan Spoor did a good job filling in for Gelof at the holding mid spot. Having a target like Gelof and the speed of Malloy, Parkside could not counter our change in personnel. We controlled about 80 percent of the play in the second half, scored three goals, had two goals called back.”

Kilby mentioned Tyler Nichols for his defensive play in the comeback win over Parkside. Cape’s game versus Bennett was played on an emerging Bermuda field which “yielded more dust than grass," said Kilby.

“Gelof hit a low shot to the right corner of the net from the top of the 18 against Bennett and from there we had a very hard-fought match,” Kilby said. "We had to earn every bit of success that we gained. We had a goal called back in the second half before Ashby put us up 2-0. We gave up a goal on a direct kick from about 25 yards - the kid from Bennett absolutely crushed a shot over our wall to the top left corner of the goal."

Kilby added that beating Parkside and Bennett on the same day would be like beating Sussex Tech and Indian River.

"A great start to the season. We will restart on Sept. 15 playing a very athletic Seaford team on the road."