Tornadoes out of gate with 11-0 win over Grace

By Leonard Butts
of The Daily Times Staff

Alcoa recorded a shutout against Grace Christian on Monday night in the first round of the District 3-AA soccer tournament.

That's not unusual in this sport, but the 11-0 result is.

"We played Grace last week and won 10-0, so the biggest focus was to make sure we were going to be into the game," Alcoa coach Tom Gorman said. "We actually came out pretty focused and had a few quick scores. That was good.

"We wanted to get as many people on as we could. With three games in four days, we wanted to get the starters off and make sure there weren't any injuries. Then we had a couple of people come back with bumps and bruises and an ankle, and we wanted to give them some minutes to see how fit they are because (today) will be a much tougher match."

The Tornadoes will face the winner of Monday's Gibbs-Berean contest today, 7 p.m., at Goddard Field.

"In the regular season, we set up some tough matches against Farragut and Bearden as throwaway games to get ready for this time of year," Gorman said. "I feel like the way we finished, we lost to Webb 1-0, but if we play to that level each time, we should be fine in our district, and we'll just have to see how the region plays out."

Despite the 11 goals, no one produced a hat trick in the win.

Sam Thompson started things off with the first two goals for Alcoa, and Andrew Mitchell made it 4-0 before the crowd had settled into their seats. The scoring continued until the Tornadoes produced an 8-0 halftime lead on additional goals from Matt Franklin, Ulyesses Ayala, Jonathan Burkhalter and Dusty McClanahan.

Additional scores in the second half came from John Duggan, who put two into the net, and Jose Ramirez.