Big Red boys roll in the second half

UP IN THE AIR — Big Red’s Cole Bowers leaps to send a shot toward the goal in front of Brooke’s Jacob Johnson, Elijah Sparks and Jacob High during Thursday’s game at Harding Stadium. – Andrew Grimm

STEUBENVILLE — Greg Bowers hoped his discussion with his team at halftime would get them going.

It turned out, it took visiting rival Brooke taking the lead one more time to accomplish that.

But, once Big Red got rolling, it did not stop as Bowers’ club remained unbeaten by surging to an 8-3 victory over the Bruins at Harding Stadium on Thursday night.

After the Bruins took a 3-2 lead, their third one-goal lead of the game, Big Red (4-0-3) scored goals less than a minute apart and never looked back, netting six unanswered to pull away.

“I thought the way we played in the first half would wake us up, but I guess we needed another awakening,” Bowers said. “After that they really got going. We settled down and got some goals, once we got rolling we were able to put the game away.

“It’s a rivalry, we expect (Brooke) to bring their best and I don’t think we brought our best in the first half, but we got going.”

Hayden Hicks had a hat trick and two assists, Cole Bowers netted a pair of goals and added three assists and Landon Bowers netted a pair of goals for the Crimson and Black.

“We have a great group of eight seniors who are leaders and we challenged them at halftime to put the first half away and put it behind it behind us and they were able to do that,” coach Bowers said.

While the final score did end up lopsided thanks to Big Red’s big second half surge, the first 45-plus minutes of the game were the kind of neck-and-neck battle it usually is when the teams meet in the series that had gone the Bruins way of late.

“It kind of got away from us, we made some mistakes,” veteran Brooke coach Joe Pepe said. “I give our kids credit, they didn’t quit the whole time. I’m proud of their effort. It was due to happen, we had beat (Big Red) the last couple times so they were due to beat us.

“I give credit to our team and credit to Big Red, they’re a good team and they kept persisting and finding out weaknesses.”

Brooke (3-5-2) opened the scoring with Evan Urso’s first of two goals in the early going, Landon Bowers responding to tie it a few minutes later.

About three minutes later, Urso netted his second to re-gain the Brooke lead, but they would not hold it as Cole Bowers knocked home a nice cross from Hicks with eight minutes before the break.

Less than three minutes into the second half, Brooke’s Chase Hile sent a corner to Brayden Farrell and he scored to give Brooke the lead back, but that proved to be their final tally.

Hicks connected on a header to knot the score back up, then Cole Bowers put Big Red on top for the first time a mere 35 seconds later.

Landon Bowers scored from in close to make it a two-goal lead three minutes later, then Hicks got a fortuitous bounce as Brooke’s Chance Broztsek (12 saves) had stopped a shot, but the momentum carried him and the ball into the goal to make it 6-3.

Hicks completed the hat trick on a rebound with just under 20 to play and James Devereaux closed the scoring with a little more than five minutes left.

Robby Lucas made seven saves in goal for Big Red. Brooke’s Michael Dadoush had two assists.

UP NEXT

Brooke: Travels to unbeaten Beaver Local on Monday.

Big Red: Hits the road to battle John Marshall Saturday.