After watching his team play to its second scoreless draw in as many games, Columbus East boys soccer coach Josh Gonsior was searching for an answer.
The Olympians outshot Seymour 12-4 on Thursday night, putting four shots on goal to the Owls’ two, but couldn’t find the net in the Hoosier Hills Conference battle.
“I think we’re just missing a little bit of that fire and desire, and I think ‘belief’ is the right word — belief in whaty we’re capable of,” Gonsior said. “We’ve showed in the last couple of games that defensively, we can lock it down and keep people out of the net, and we’re just going to have to build on that in the attack. We know we have players that have the ability to finish, but it takes more than just coaches believing in them. It takes them actually believing in themselves to actually get the result we need, and right now, that’s what we’re striving toward. I know it’s a long season, but we have to figure it out at some point.”
East (0-3-2, 0-0-1) had a couple of chances. Jake Hofelich was just wide with a shot in the eighth minute after taking a lead pass from Gui Silva Coelho. Silva Coehlo was wide right with a shot in the 52nd minute after taking a cross from Rylan Shaw.
The Olympians closest opportunity came in the 76th minute, when a Seymour defender cleared the ball off the goal line.
Pete Coriden finished with two saves for East, which did not allow a shot on goal until the final 11 minutes.
East was playing for the first time since a 0-0 tie with Columbus North seven days earlier.
“Those first five games go pretty quickly, and then we have a week off, and we have to prepare for that because that’s how games are going to be — that gauntlet at the beginning, and then we kind of stretch them out for a little bit,” Gonsior said. “I felt like our sessions were pretty good. We focused on doing some conditioning, and we focused on defensive pressure and keeping the play in front of us, and I think we did a good job of that.”
