BEACHWOOD—Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can keep the postal service from delivering the mail.
Apparently, Beachwood’s soccer team follows a similar creed.
The Bison overcame heavy rain, wind and a muddy pitch to defeat Bloomfield, 7-0, in a Division III sectional final on Saturday.
“It was tough conditions today,” said Beachwood coach Brian Greene, who improved to 171-122-40 in his 19th season. “It was raining throughout and it was cold. We’re a passing team and it’s hard to pass the ball when it stops in the water. The conditions were tough and everything was challenging but the boys persevered.”
Sophomore Shai Yulish scored two goals in the game to give him 29 on the year, which broke a 37-year old school record for goals in a single season.
Ricky Rosen scored 28 goals in 1977 and Michael Riemer tied that mark in 1981. Yulish broke it with his 10th multiple goal game, which also tied the school record set by Logan Camin in 2004. Rosen holds the Beachwood record with 77 career goals and Camin’s 17 multiple goal games is the Bison standard.
“I’m glad he got the record and we’ve got that behind us now so we can just worry about playing and not worry about things like that because those are distractions,” Greene said. “Like I said before, he’s the one that’s putting the ball in the back of the net but when he’s not doing it Max (Babbush) is or Bogatur (Askaryan) is. Asaf (Roth) didn’t play today because he’s nursing some nagging injuries and we didn’t need him so I just rested him. We have lots of weapons and I’m proud of them.”
Yulish scored off a Matthew Stovsky assist in the fifth minute to give the Bison an early lead. Babbush made it 2-0 five minutes later and Yulish netted his second with 10 minutes left in the first half to give the Bison a 3-0 halftime lead.
Askaryan finished off a Vonya Shiffman pass to make it 4-0 just one minute into the second half and Stovsky scored seven minutes later. David Somogyi scored his first goal of the season off a Junyoung Lee assist in the 67th minute. Lee made it 7-0 a minute later.
Beachwood goalie Griffin Davis didn’t record in a save in notching the clean sheet but later that afternoon he did kick the game-winning extra point in the Beachwood football team’s 21-20 overtime win against Cuyahoga Heights.
The Bison improved to 11-4-2 overall and host Gilmour at 4:30 p.m. on Monday in a district semifinal.
“It was good for us to play. It’s been a long week because we had the bye and the guys were chomping at the bit to play, so I’m glad we got a game under our belt,” Greene said. “They got a chance to taste some success. Now we’ve got to buckle down and get to work in districts.”
The Bison defeated Gilmour, 3-1, back on Sept. 4.
