photo by Greg Davick
It's been three years since the Cleveland Blue Raiders have won a district 5-AAA championship but Thursday night at Soddy-Daisy they again reclaimed the title with a 3-1 win over the Trojans.
Soddy-Daisy opened the scoring with less than a minute left in the first half when Christian Dean headed a long throw-in into the goal.
The 1-0 lead only lasted 90 seconds into the second half.
Cleveland's Anfrenee Avila scored the first of his two goals when he touched the ball past Soddy-Daisy keeper Davidson Byrd.
Avila gave the Blue Raiders a 2-1 lead in the 47th minute after he followed a shot that was saved by Byrd and finished it off.
Cleveland's final goal come in the 70th minute off a hard low shot by Jesse Jones just inside the right post.
Cleveland head coach John Brose was a little worried after giving up the goal in the first half.
"We are 9-0 when we score first and we are 1-10 when we give up the first goal," Brose said. " We had some adversity and I told them they are going to have to want it more and they did."
Cleveland beat Soddy-Daisy 5-3 in their regular season match up.
"We knew it would be a physical match and they are a well coached team," Brose continued. "Getting the equalizer one minute into the second half helped. They played harder than us in the first half and we reversed that in the second."
Cleveland will host a region game on Tuesday and Soddy-Daisy will travel.