
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 2, 1993                   TAG: 9306020165
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

BLACKSBURG PRESSURE WORKS IN SOCCER VICTORY

It was only a matter of time before Blacksburg High School's offensive pressure paid off.

And when it did, the Indians rolled to a 4-0 victory over Northside in the quarterfinal of the Group AA state soccer tournament Tuesday night.

Blacksburg (16-0-2) will entertain Christiansburg in a state semifinal from 7 p.m. Friday. It will be the fifth meeting this season between the New River Valley District rivals.

Northside (9-9-2) found itself under pressure from the very beginning of the match. The Vikings stymied Blacksburg for the first 12 minutes. Then Augie Niles took a pass from Ben Cherry in front of a congested goal mouth and knocked it into the net.

"Coach B [Shelley Blumenthal] said to keep it wide, cross the ball and then turn back a little bit," Niles said. "If we do that, we're going to get scoring opportunities. That's what happened tonight. And we capitalized on a few of them."

Blacksburg kept the pressure on, but the score remained 1-0 for most of the first half. The pressure paid off again as Gregg Adamo scored on a crossing pass from Todd Lyons in the 35th minute.

Only 3 minutes, 47 seconds into the second half, Lyons added Blacksburg's third goal on a breakaway.

"I knew they would probably get more shots then we would," said Northside coach Fred Wagner. "They're a great team. We did what we could. But we came up short."

After that, the Indians turned it over to their defense. Northside had several scoring chances in the middle of the second half, but each time Kevin Schug stopped the Vikings cold.

"I was lucky enough to stop them," said Schug, who made five saves as the Indians recorded their fourth consecutive shutout of the postseason. "We're not going to be perfect all the time. But we play a strong man-to-man defense. And Michael [Dowdy] is an excellent stopper."

Samuel Nokuri closed Blacksburg's scoring, netting a pass from Matt Belay in the 34th minute of the second half.

See microfilm for box score.

by CNB