DOWNSVILLE — Soccer season started this Tuesday as Downsville’s annual tournament began. Multiple teams from Section IV and Sullivan County faced off in some crossover competition.

In the first window of games, Sullivan West’s boys and girls teams faced off against Delaware Academy. The girls had a pretty evenly-fought matchup with DA finally breaking through for the first goal of the game with under 10 minutes left in the first half.

In the second half, the Lady Bulldogs displayed their fighting spirit, with key saves and strong offensive runs pushing the play into DA’s half of the field. Despite their late efforts, Delaware Academy was able to hang on for a 1-0 victory.

“With this being our first game of the season, we think the girls showed up and performed well,” Sullivan West Coaches Brockner and Cummings said. “We have a young team this year, so today was primarily to put the girls into different situations and see how they perform. We were definitely impressed with them and look forward to the rest of the season.”

Echoing the sentiments of the Girls’ coaches, SW Boys coach Kristina Verrico said, “Today was a decent start to see where the team was at this season. Unfortunately, we only had 14 eligible players for this game so I’m excited to see what we look like with the full team.” 

The inexperience of the SW Boys definitely showed in their match against Delaware Academy, where DA put up five goals while keeping the Bulldogs from scoring. DA kept possession of the ball a majority of the game, keeping Sullivan West on the defensive.

Delaware Academy was able to score the first goal of the day a few minutes into the first half. They kept the pressure on and found the goal two more times before the end of the half.

The second half didn’t go much better for SW. Despite their efforts, they had a hard time maintaining possession and pressuring the DA defense.