by Shawn Yonker

When Pocomoke High School's boys' soccer team has its ball control passing offense clicking, there isn’t a lot anyone can do to stop it. Just ask Owings Mills.

In their first state Final Four appearance in 21 years, Owings Mills was sent reeling early by the two-time defending champ Pocomoke, which posted a 4-1 victory in a Class state 1A semifinal game at Washington College Friday evening. For the sixth time in seven years, Pocomoke will play for the state championship.

Pocomoke will go for a "three-peat" Saturday at South River High against Poolesville. Poolesville from Montgomery County defeated Bohemia Manor, 2-1, in the other semifinal Friday.

After upending then co-defending state champ Sparrows Point for the North Region crown Tuesday, the Eagles had no answer for Pocomoke, which built a 3-0 lead at intermission. Senior forward Kyle Daugherty had two goals and two assists for Pocomoke. Jordan Becker and Chris Roberts also tallied for the Eastern Shore school 

“The ball movement was beautiful,” Owings Mills coach Bill Kaputa said. “Real nice. Passes were all on the foot, give-and-gos, triangles down the field. They are just real solid fundamentally with no real weaknesses. The defense was tall and strong on the head balls.”

The lone bright spot for Owings Mills came on a goal early in the second half. The Eagles (7-8) arrived late because of traffic pushing the start time a half-hour, then their troubles with Pocomoke quickly started.

It took the Warriors just three minutes to get on the board as Daugherty found Becker, a freshman with a lead pass and he buried it in the upper left corner past Owings Mills goalkeeper Sean Lorden. With 20 minutes remaining in the first half, Roberts got a feed from Daugherty, and put a shot in the upper left corner for a 2-0 lead.

At the nine-minute mark, Daugherty found the net, thanks to a long lead pass from Sam Byrd near midfield. The pass gave Daugherty a step on the deepest Eagles defender and he beat Lorden, sending Pocomoke to the half in full command.

“It was a tremendous weight off all our shoulders (to get out to an early lead),” Daugherty said. “It was wonderful and we were all happy. Coming into this game everyone kind of had jitters all of a sudden we came out and played Pocomoke soccer and put it away early.”

Daugherty capped the scoring, taking a pass from Roberts and beat a pair of Eagle defenders before finding the back of the net. Pocomoke coach Alan Byrd was impressed with his team's showing on the Washington College's field.

“When we play like that we do OK,” Pocomoke coach Alan Byrd said. “When we are moving the ball I enjoy watching it. (Becker) is there to finish it and he did. Kyle made the nice pass, but what I liked was that we made four other passes before that to draw them to the other side.”

The Eagles' playoff run included victories over the top three seeds in the North Region-Digital Harbor (third), Chesapeake-Baltimore County (second) and No. 1 Sparrows Point. Though its season ended nearly three hours away, Owings Mills didn't come back across the Bay Bridge empty-handed.

“It was nice to get that one goal," said Kaputa. "The fact that we didn’t get blanked is always nice.”