Boys soccer: Bowie 3, Eleanor Roosevelt 2

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By James A. McCray III
Prince George's County, Content Manager

Bowie's Esmir Lugonjic struck the soccer ball quickly with his left foot, and as the ball hit the net, the senior turned around and threw his hands up. He then received hugs from any teammate within an arm's reach, and rightfully so.

Lugonjic's goal completed a Bowie come-from-behind victory, and proved to be the winning goal in a 3-2 victory over the visiting Eleanor Roosevelt Raiders in Friday's 4A South semifinal match, advancing the Bulldogs to the regional championship game.

"It felt amazing, I couldn't believe it myself," Lugonjic said of his goal. "I scored, and the ball hit the net, and I just stood there like, 'What just happened?' Then everyone started yelling, 'Goal,' ... and it just lifted my spirits."

Friday may have been Halloween, but in the semifinal contest might as well have been July 4th as fireworks were set off between the two teams as five first-half goals determined the outcome.

After only 9 minutes and 15 seconds had ticked off of the clock, the Raiders were up 2-0 and had undefeated Bowie on its heels. However, the Bulldogs were able to muster up enough energy and enough effort to score three goals, the latter two within 3 minutes of each other to earn the come-from-behind victory and advance the Bulldogs.

"Our team was not prepared," Bowie head coach Richard Kirkland said. " ... Roosevelt went into more of a defensive mode [early in the game] and didn't push hard. All of a sudden they got that one score, and then when they scored the second time, and it kind of woke our kids up. ... Our kids did well for 20 minutes to go from 2-0 to 3-2, and then after that we were just hanging on."

After Travis Dennis and Michael Belshay provided the quick goals in the seventh and ninth minutes of the first half for the Raiders (9-5), Bowie was able to get on the board after a Patrick Thornton kick found the back of the net to cut the lead to 2-1 only 2 minutes after Belshay's goal.

After 15 minutes of up-and-down the field action, Bowie's Brian Graham tied the game kicking a ball just over the Roosevelt goalie to tie the game at 2-2.

"We just never gave up, we knew we could come back," Graham said. "After we scored our first [goal] we knew we had to get a second one. After we scored our second one, we had to get the third one; we never gave up."

"They came out today gutsy," Roosevelt head coach George Kallas said. " ... We came out and played hard, and played gutsy, and we had to take the game to them, that was the only way to play it. Barring a few breaks here and there, it could have been the other way. I am very proud of the young men."

On Bowie, Kallas added: "You have to give credit to Bowie, they rose to the challenge. They went down two and they rose up to play. They are a quality team, and that's what quality teams do, they get up to play. They are a tremendous team."

Bowie improves to 15-0 on the season with the victory.

tmccray@digitalsports.com

Bowie 3, Roosevelt 2

Roosevelt    2   0
Bowie         3   0

Goals
Roosevelt: (Dennis, Belshay)
Bowie: (Thornton, Graham, Lugonjic)