Anderson scores lone goal in Warriors' senior night win

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on October 21, 2014 1:48 PM

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aetzler@newsargus.com

As shot after shot after shot deflected off the crossbar or sailed wide of the goal, players from Eastern Wayne and Charles B. Aycock wondered if anyone would ever find the net.

Christian Anderson started to get nervous.

"It's nerve wrecking," Anderson said. "You just keep thinking 'who's going to get the goal?' We knew it was going to come."

And Anderson was the one it came to -- with a little bit of luck.

In the 72nd minute, Anderson mishit a shot from 20 yards that dribbled across the ground and through the waiting hands of CBA goalie Joey Hampton for the lone goal in a 1-0 win at Little Big Horn on Monday evening.

"I really didn't get all of (the ball) when I kicked," Anderson said. "I kind of hit it off the side of my foot, but I'm glad it went in."

The Warriors, on senior night, swept the regular-season series from the Golden Falcons. They conclude regular-season play Wednesday at Southern Wayne.

With just 11 starting positions, EW head coach Jorg Wagner sat underclassmen Alex Acosta and Anderson to put 11 of 12 seniors on the field. One senior -- captain Victor Kokiko -- volunteered to give up his spot for a fellow senior who hadn't gotten many starts this season.

It was the first time Kokiko wasn't on the field for the opening whistle.

"That was big of him," Wagner said of his senior leader. "A lot of these guys don't get a chance to play, and this was his first time missing a start."

Kokiko and the rest of the players who started the game on the bench came on about five minutes in and immediately made their presence known.

The Warriors unleashed an offensive onslaught and had two balls knock off the crossbar in a five-minute span. They hit the crossbar twice more in the match.

Meanwhile, the Golden Falcons hit the post two times in the match. Finishing has proven to be problems for both teams at times during the season, but Wagner didn't attribute the lack of goals to an inability to finish.

"It was really just unlucky," Wagner said. "You get a few balls off the posts and the crossbar the finishing isn't bad it's just unlucky."

But then the Warriors found the luck that had been eluding them all match, when Anderson's shot trickled through Hampton's hands.

"It's tough for him, he knows he should have stopped it," said CBA coach Byron Adkins, whose team played its regular-season finale and will miss the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

"It's unfortunate ... but if it stings, then good, they'll remember that next year."