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Tigers stumble in sectional title tilt

The Inter-Mountain photos by Logan Comer Elkins’ Liam Gongola battles with two Lewis County players for possession of the ball Saturday afternoon.

ELKINS — Justin Parsons scored a goal late in the game Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to help the Elkins Tigers come back to defeat Lewis County in the Class AA/A Region 2 Section 2 Championship game.

The Minutemen won the sectional title, 3-2, and will advance to the Region 2 Championship this week.

“We had a great practice on Friday,” EHS coach Michael Sfameni said. “We came up with a very good game plan that we felt was going to be effective. We capitalized on the game plan for about 15 to 20 minutes in the first half and the rest of the half, we reverted back to old habits.

“It was kind of the same story in the second half. We started out pretty flat in the second half and didn’t find a rhythm until about midway through, that’s about when we started getting more shots and put that second goal in,” he said. “We had numerous opportunities to tie it up, there at the end. We even had an open net, but we couldn’t get a shot off. It was more like we gave up. We weren’t outplayed, we beat ourselves. We didn’t do the things we needed to do to win and move on. They did.”

Jared Parsons got the Tigers on the scoreboard first at about the 7-minute mark. However, back-to-back goals from Johnathan Atchison and Brandon Flesher put LCHS up 2-1 at the intermission.

Elkins fell to Lewis County 3-2 in the Class AA/A Region 2 Section 2 Championship game Saturday.

The Minutemen came out in the second half and padded their lead with a quick score to go up 3-1. In the final minutes, Justin Parsons found the back of the net but EHS couldn’t overcome the early deficit.

Elkins finished the season with 10 wins, 7 losses and 2 ties. Sfameni said he is pleased with how his first year of coaching wrapped up and is looking forward to next season.

“For this being our first year together, and my first year as a coach, I think we did all right,” Sfameni said. “It gave me a pretty good feel for the things that we need to do going forward, things that we should work on, things that we should do differently and things that we do well and can build on from here.

“Next year, we’re going to make some changes. I’m already excited for next year,” he said. “I came into this season late. I got hired three days into the season, so I didn’t get a jump start on the season at all. So now, looking forward to next year, we’ll have a few weeks in the summer.

“They need to be doing their things in the offseason, staying in condition and get some touches in and trying to improve and get better. That’s ultimately what we have to do.”

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