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Indian Springs’ boys and girls soccer teams picked up wins in the second round of the playoffs on Tuesday, April 27 to get within one win of the Final Four. (Reporter photo/Keith McCoy)

By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Managing Editor

PELHAM – Indian Springs’ boys and girls soccer teams continued their seasons with tight 2-1 victories in the playoffs on Tuesday, April 27 at home.

The boys picked up a win against John Carroll to advance to the quarterfinals and get within one win of the Final Four, while the girls took down rival Altamont.

The boys game also featured a top-two battle between arguably the two top teams in Class 4A-5A this season, with No. 1 Springs picking up the tight win against No. 2 John Carroll.

Going into the matchup, the two teams had a combined 37 wins and six losses on the season.

John Carroll grabbed the early advantage on a goal from Michael Rowland with 25:05 to play in the first half.

But after a scoreless first 35 minutes of the half, Indian Springs came back with a big goal in the final three minutes of the half to equalize the game going into the halftime break.

That set the game to restart even in the second half, and Indian Springs capitalized. On a night where the offense wasn’t clicking, they settled in defensively and kept a dangerous John Carroll offense that had scored two goals or more in all but five of its 24 games this season in check.

The Cavaliers never could find the same success it saw early in the game, while Indian Springs turned up the pressure and struck with the game-winning goal with 13:21 to play.

That’s when Nathan Tozzi found the back of the net to keep Indian Springs’ season alive and send them into the quarterfinals.

The girls’ game, which was also a battle between two teams next to each other in the standing at five and six, also saw a tight battle.

But it was Indian Springs that started the game with the momentum and used that to its advantage.

Springs struck first 17:27 into the game when Norah Roller buried a shot into the back of the net for a 1-0 advantage.

That became the only goal of the first half, as Indian Springs’ defense was tough to move the ball on all night.

Neither team was able to find much space offensively in the second half either, which led to Indian Springs senior Virginia Hunt testing her luck from further out.

From close to 40 yards, she striped a ball on a perfect shot that was placed perfectly into the back of the net for a 2-0 lead with 20:40 left in the game.

With Springs’ defense pitching a shutout to that point, the 2-0 deficit now seemed too difficult to overcome, but Altamont cracked into the score column just one minute later to draw within one goal with 19:31 to play.

From there, however, Indian Springs returned to form and was able to get back to its shut out play, not giving up another good look the rest of the way to hold on for the 2-1 victory.

The girls will travel to John Carroll on Friday night at 6 p.m., while the boys will host American Christian a day later at 6 p.m.

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