Miller's hat trick lifts Green Hornets past Eagles

By: | News Virginian
Published: May 27, 2008

By Corine Gatti
The News Virginian
FISHERSVILLE – Josh Miller had a hat trick to lead Wilson Memorial to a 4-1 victory Monday afternoon over Clarke County to advance to the second round of the Region B tournament.
The Green Hornets were back on their heels in the first 20 minutes of the match, being outshot 6-1 and dominated by Clarke County’s defense.
Miller saw Clarke netminder Raymond Smetanick covering the outside left corner and sliced the ball into the right side of the net to break the deadlock with his first goal.
“I just wanted to come out here and play hard,” Miller said. “This is the furthest that we’ve been, so I just wanted to get goals.”
Hornet coach Kyle Congleton said that he changed the formation.
“Actually we change our formation and personnel. We went to a full-back system, I thought that we were allowing to many goals up the middle,” Congleton said. “It has worked to hold off Stonewall Jackson and now Clarke County.”
In the second half the Hornets changed the tempo of the game into their favor. They kept the pressure on Clarke County with 13 shots while keeping Clarke to eight.
Meanwhile, Miller netted his second goal minutes into the second half.
“When anyone scores, the whole team gets excited,” Miller said. “We won as a team.”
Miller recorded 16 goals in the regular season.
“He is peaking at the right time for us,” Congleton said.
Clarke County’s Casey Patrick netted the only goal from the top circle. The Hornet’s Matt Thomas answered with extra padding slipping the final goal into the net.
“Matt has done very well for us. It’s like I have said before, this a team that really wants to win, they are unselfish and have been really distributing the ball very well,” Congleton said.
Thomas said that the team is going to stay clam entering the next round against the winner of the Altavista and Goochland quarterfinal.
“We just know that we can do it,” Thomas said.