In soccer parlance, it was a friendly match between Gilman and Boys’ Latin. Gilman is a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A conference team and BL plays in the B conference.
Yet when these two schools get together, friendly is hardly the way to describe the competition.
“Any time these two schools get together in any sport, it is kind of a rivalry,” said Gilman coach Jon Seal. “And I think both schools have a lot of respect for each other – the soccer programs have a lot of respect for each other.”
Laker coach Don Rickels noted it is very spirited competition.
“These guys are all friends – they hang together, they play club together, they grew up playing rec ball together – it is almost like two brothers competing in the back yard.”
The game played at Boy’s Latin on Friday was ultimately decided with about seven minutes left when Gilman’s Tanner Vosvick barely deflected a Sam Wancowicz free kick with his head, just changing the flight of the ball enough to get it past Laker keeper Kolby Caplin.
However, the preceding 72-plus minutes of play by Boy’s Latin had garnered Gilman’s attention and earned their respect.
In spite of a constant offense surge by Gilman, the Lakers grabbed a 1-0 lead with less than nine minutes left in the opening half, then held the Greyhounds off the scoreboard until there were about 15 minutes to play.
In first half play, Boys’ Latin’s Colin Dempsey took advantage of a loose ball following a direct kick from Danny Shaifer and placed it past Gilman keeper Andrew Harris to give the Lakers a 1-0 lead.
Defensively for BL, Caplin had several first half saves, including multiple times when he charged the ball to knock it away with his fists. On one corner attempt by the Greyhounds, the ball was loose in front of the goal and Laker defender Liam Burman – from near the goal line – neatly deflected the ball over the net, thwarting a good scoring opportunity
The Greyhound offensive surge continued in the second half yet nothing could find the net.
Early in the final 40 minutes, Laker back-up keeper Parker Yablon collided with a Greyhound in an attempt to knock the ball away. Yablon collapsed on the field, the ball squirted toward the goal and Gilman had a shot, yet a Laker defender cut the angle and the shot was forced wide right.
The Greyhounds finally dented the net in the 65th minute when Anthony Kim took a feed from Christian Wulff and got the ball past Caplin, who returned to the game after the Yablon injury.
Then Vosvick, a junior defender who was moved to the top of the offense to add a spark to the Greyhound effort, got the header and the winning tally.
“It might have skimmed my head a little bit,” Vosvick said after the game. “But I just did my job – I kind of got in the way of the keeper and it went my way.”
It had to be a relief for Vosvick, who earlier drew a yellow card for rough contact with a Laker player.
“I was getting frustrated – I wasn’t playing smart,” he said. “We had so many chances and I was just getting frustrated – I take full responsibility for what I did.”
The Gilman coach said Vosvick knows better, will learn from the mistake and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“I trust Tanner wholeheartedly, and sent him back in the game knowing that he was going to make something good happen for us,” Seal said
Yet Seal noted the irony of the winning score.
“All the chances we had to score, and that’s the goal that’s gonna win the game,” he said in a post-game interview.
“Give BL all the credit in the world,” Seal said. “They came out and had a game plan – some may argue they executed a little better than we did – but we found a way to win and we’ll win our lessons in victory any time.”
Seal said he was proud of the Greyhound effort but added the team has a long way to go in a short period of time.
‘We’re over at McDonogh on Thursday (September 8) and it has to be much better than this.”
For Rickels, the BL team accomplished its goal.
“We go into these non-league friendly games as an opportunity to play really, really good competition to see where our strengths and weaknesses are,” Rickels said.
“I thought we played terrific – I can’t ask any more from my boys,” he said. “If we give that effort in the B conference, we’ll be OK.”
Gilman upped its early-season record to 3-0. Boys’ Latin is 0-1.