Scots men’s soccer collapses after halftime lead, downed 5-2 to Union Pines

LAURINBURG – The Fighting Scots men’s soccer team (3-8) hadn’t played a home game since Sep. 7. before Wednesday night’s contest against the Union Pines Vikings (7-7-1). However, the home team advantage wouldn’t be enough to break a five-game losing streak for the Scots, as they would be downed 5-2.

Throughout much of the first half, both teams struggled to get anything going offensively, including several missed corner kicks and a missed free kick by Union Pines. But, with 8:28 remaining in the half, Scotland left midfielder Matthew White would connect from a couple feet out to put the Scots up 1-0.

Then, with 3:19 to go in the first half, Bobby Phariss of Union Pines would head the ball into his own goal, which would put the Scots up 2-0 going into halftime.

The second half featured several mistakes by the Scots, which resulted in two penalty kick attempts that Union Pines was able to capitalize off of to give the Vikings two goals.

Three more goals scored by Union Pines ultimately put the game out of reach, as the Scots suffered their sixth straight loss.

After the match, Scots head coach Orrick McDougald said that penalty kicks by the opposing team has been a recurring theme as of late, as well as, not many penalties being called on their opponents.

“For the past three or four games, (the opposing team’s) had penalty kicks in the box,” he said. “I’m not going to blame it on the refs. I won’t, but I will. A lot of times, we don’t get a lot of calls, and the other team gets a lot of calls.”

With the Scots now 0-7 in Sandhills Athletic Conference play, McDougald feels his team can play better than how they’ve been.

“It’s a mental thing,” he said. “We have to continue to play whether they score or not. But, I’m proud of them; they played good. We just have to figure out how to gel more as a unit when it comes to when we’re being up.”

With the season winding down, McDougald wants to see his team give their best effort and see improvement with four games remaining.

“We take small victories,” McDougald said. “Just like the other game we played last week, we were down 2-1 against a great team, and I told them those are just the small victories. Take those small victories and continue to build on it.”

The Fighting Scots will look to break their losing streak and winless conference record Friday night, with a home matchup against the Lee County Yellowjackets. Kickoff is slated for just after 6 p.m.