SPENCERVILLE – On their final go round at home for the season the Spencerville Bearcats churned out a dominating performance on the scoreboard as they eliminated New Knoxville 6-0 in the opening round of the OHSAA Boys Soccer Tournament Wednesday night.
Spencerville opened up the scoring under five minutes into the contest with their lone senior Joel Van Gorder sending a lead pass from the ring wing into the box for Will Gallaspie who quickly took a bouncing ball off the Memorial Field turf and headed it in with 35:09 left in the opening half for a 1-0 lead.
Western Ohio Soccer League Player of the Year honoree Emerson Layman notched his fourth goal in the last two games for the Bearcats with 31:35 to go in the half as he fired a roller from just over 20 yards out around Rangers keeper Preston Rutschilling to push the hosts ahead 2-0.
Will Gallaspie opened the second half with the third Bearcat marker by taking a throw in from near the corner lobbed perfectly towards the net by Carter Ringwald to head a shot into the net for his 23rd goal of the year.
Gallaspie added a hat trick goal to give Spencerville a 4-0 lead at the 24:23 mark as he snagged an errant pass from a New Knoxville ball handler and outraced a quartet of defenders to the south end of the field and blasted a shot past Rutschilling for the score.
Nearly a minute and a half after the goal from Gallaspie the Bearcats ran their advantage to 5-0 when a pass from Layman found the boot of Josh Henline, an Honorable Mention selection in both the WOSL and Northwest Conference who found the back of the net for his fourth goal on the campaign.
Working off of a set piece from the corner the hosts tossed in their sixth and final goal of the evening with 18:00 to go as Henline batted in a ball in front of a busy net for his second marker of the night.
New Knoxville sees their season come to an end at 1-14-2 while Spencerville moves to 11-5 and will travel to Miller City for a second round playoff battle on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 P.M.
Spencerville defeated Miller City on September 21st at Memorial Field 1-0 in the regular season.
“This was a great way to close out our last game on the turf this year. The guys moved the ball as a team tonight and we kept New Knoxville on the run while being able to capitalize. Emerson Layman showed everyone why he’s the player of the year tonight and Will Gallaspie also had some great finishes. I’m excited to have this momentum going in to Saturday, we will work hard for the next two days to prepare for a rematch with a very good Miller City squad. I am so grateful for all of the students and community members who came out to support this team tonight, we run as one” said Spencerville bench boss Josh Van Gorder after the game.