Ryle’s boys soccer team extended two streaks Tuesday.
The Raiders, the defending Ninth Region champions, won their fifth straight, a 3-0 shutout at Dixie Heights on goals by Eddie Francis, Josh Line and Ricardo Galan.
The other string? Tuesday was the fourth consecutive time Ryle turned in a clean-sheet shutout. All-State goalkeeper Landon Barth and Jack Nieman have combined for the blanks from opponents.
Ryle coach Stephen Collins said the Raiders proved one more thing: someone other than Diego Hoenderkamp (six goals) and Brice Denigan (four scores) can provide some offense.
“It took a lot of players to win this game defensively,” Collins said. “It took a lot of players on the field. We had other scorers besides Brice and Diego. Anytime you can have multiple scoring options, it makes you harder to guard down the road.”
Dixie Heights fell to 3-4-1. Coach Trey Crone said the defense was well-organized most of the night.
“We had a couple mental lapses,” Crone said. “There was a lot of positives. In our midfield, we were able to possess the ball. The first half, we were very good; we created good chances.”
Though Denigan had scoring chances in the 18th and 20th minutes and Hoenderkamp had one in the 25th, the Colonels mostly double-marked them all night.
“We’ve been working kind of like a team defense,” Crone said before the match. “We’re not going to have an individual mark them.”
It helped Ryle (5-2) to have defender/midfielder Marcos Hoenderkamp back from an injury. Collins also moved Diego Lakkis and Pierce Wilson from midfield to defense.
“It allowed us to move Owen (Schierberg), who’s naturally an outside defender, and we had him playing inside,” Collins said. “He was playing center (midfielder) for us. We kind of moved things around. After the defense, the next thing we did is, we worked on possession because we felt we were giving up too much possession, and the other team was attacking us and getting too many shots.”
Francis scored his first goal of the season in the 37th minute.
“I thought I was flashy,” Francis said. “I was just going hard, making moves.”
Dixie Heights’ best scoring chance came in the 55th minute when Donovan Lameier found himself alone down the right side. His shot from about 25 yards to Barth’s left, however, missed wide right.
Line and Galan, meanwhile, did not miss. Line made it 2-0 in the 56th minute, and Galan ended the scoring five minutes later.
“(I) crossed it in, it bounced out,” Line said of his goal. “Ricardo always passes it back to me in practice, so I knew it was coming. He trusts me, and I just took it – skimmed it off the grass, a bottom corner rocket.”
Galan’s goal was the first in his high school career. Line’s pass found him inside the six-yard box.
Ryle and Dixie Heights are home on Thursday. The Raiders host Holy Cross at 7:30 p.m., while the Colonels meet Villa Madonna.
“We’re definitely getting better on becoming a family,” Galan said.