(Story originally appeared November 14th, 2018)
By: Nate Calvin
NWOAL Player of the Year Josh Kidder scored twice as Archbold applied continuous pressure to the Kirtland defense to wear them down and earn their school record 21st win of the season by the score of 3-0.
Archbold wasted no time with Elijah Zimmerman getting the Bluestreaks first shot of the night just one minute into the game and that was a sign of thing to come for the Kirtland Hornets. At the 37:31 mark of the first half it appeared Archbold had their first goal of the night when Zimmerman found the net, but the goal was waved off by a delayed offsides call by the official.
The Bluestreaks were unphased though as they continued to fire away as Josh Kidder, Trey Theobald, and Andrew Hogrefe each had shots on goal over the next twenty minutes for Archbold. The Bluestreaks finally broke through with Zimmerman finding the top corner with 12:38 left in the opening half to make it 1-0 as this goal would stand.
Archbold totaled 15 shots in the first forty minutes of action with six of those being on goal but Kirtland was able to withstand the pressure and only trail 1-0 at halftime.
The second half was more of the same from the Archbold offense and they were able to extend their lead to 2-0 with 33:16 left in the game when Kidder scored on a free kick. Kirtland was on their heels for a majority of the second half as Archbold continued to attack despite having a two goal lead.
With 26 seconds remaining, Kidder took advantage of the Kirtland goalkeeper coming out of the net to make a play and he iced the Bluestreaks win with his second goal of the night. This will be Archbold’s (21-1) first appearance in the state final in the program’s nine-year history.
Nate can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com