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Big second half: Warren scores 3 unanswered, beats Jackson 3-1

VINCENT – Before the Warriors could blink, they found themselves down 1-0 to Jackson in a pivotal Southeastern Ohio Athletic League soccer match at Warren High School Thursday evening.

The Warriors would rally, behind a pair of goals from Alex Miller and one more from Aaron Mazurkiewicz, to defeat the Ironmen 3-1 to improve to 7-1-1 overall and 5-1-1 in the SEOAL.

“It’s like a never-ending story with us at home,” said Warren head coach Andrew Johnson. “We’re a young team and we just come out not so hot the first 10 or 15 minutes.

“Then, we take the game over.”

12 seconds into the match, Jackson’s Brandon Ghearing burst up the middle of the field and made a shot to the left side of the goal to put Warren in an early 1-0 hole.

“After that we kind of brought it back together and started playing our style of soccer,” Johnson said.

The Jackson defense kept Warren quiet in the first half, but the Warriors exploded for three goals in the second half.

In the 50th minute, Mazurkiewicz got the royal blue and white on the board, slipping through the defense after almost losing his balance and punching it into the back of the net.

The Ironmen defense had double-teamed Miller, Warren’s leading scorer this season, for most of the match. Johnson found a way to exploit that strategy.

“They were all over Alex all night,” Johnson said. “They had two guys on him the whole time, so we couldn’t do anything through him. I dropped him back to the middle which opened up their defense. Nate (Robinson) just played a beautiful ball to (Mazurkiewicz) and he put it right away.”

Later, with just under 10 minutes remaining in the contest, Mazurkiewicz struck again, this time with an assist.

With a free kick at about midfield, Mazurkiewicz booted the ball just to left of the net, and Miller came in and hit it off his right foot for the go-ahead score.

About two minutes later, Miller scored another one, this time with his left foot, to put Warren up by two with 7:21 left. Robinson assisted Miller on the goal.

The Warriors attempted 16 shots on the night, while Jackson had six shot attempts.

Ironmen keeper Chandler Fout made nine of Jackson’s 10 saves in the match. Warren keeper Tyler Schwendeman had to make just one save in the game.

In the junior varsity match, it was Mazurkiewicz’s younger brother Andrew who did the damage for the Warriors, scoring two goals in a 2-1 Warren victory,

The Warriors are on the road Saturday when they take on Chillicothe in a non-league game.

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