Seth Oliver could only sit and watch from the sidelines when E.C. Glass battled Jefferson Forest to a double-overtime tie back in March.
The senior was serving a one-game suspension for dissenting with a referee one game earlier. So that night he felt the sting of knowing he could have made a difference, had to deal with the nagging pain of a tie that might’ve been avoided. And he vowed to make up for it.
So it was rivalry night once more on Monday, Jefferson Forest again, and this time Oliver was on the pitch.
“It was tough,” he remembered. “I had to get through it. I felt like I let my team down. Just had to make up for it tonight.”
Oliver made all the difference in Glass’ 3-1 win, scoring the go-ahead goal late in the second half and then giving the Hilltoppers some breathing room in the final minutes.
With Glass and JF knotted at 1 in the 68th minute, Oliver snuck a shot through a crowd of players and into the far side of JF’s goal.
It was a play that seemed to unfold in slow motion. Oliver was the recipient of a ball that had been batted around, and he kept his shot low to the ground. JF keeper Ian Fleck (five saves) ran to the opposite side of the goal and dove, but the ball crept in the corner.
“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was in,” Oliver said.
Oliver’s next goal was a rocket that zoomed by in a blink.
In the 74th minute, the midfielder eyed a loose ball about 25 yards from the JF goal. He took a couple steps and let off a shimmering shot that stunned the Cavaliers and sent Glass fans into a frenzy.
“Just had to kick it as hard as I could,” he said.
It was the first Glass win over JF since the 2016 season. JF handed the ‘Toppers a loss in the second meeting of 2017, after the two teams battled to a tie in the first meeting that year.
JF (7-4-1) held a 1-0 lead at halftime. Chase Mackey put the Cavs on the board in the 23rd minute with a long, high-arching shot from roughly 30 yards out that sailed over the head of Glass goalie Max Miller (three saves).
“A lot of high emotions,” Mackey said of Monday’s matchup. “I felt like we kept our cool for the most part. … Hopefully, we’ll be able to see them later on [in region play].”
The first half was also defined by stellar goalie play. Miller stretched out and diverted a JF shot in the 7th minute; Fleck did the same two minutes later.
But the second half belonged to the Hilltoppers, who scored three unanswered goals.
“We just didn’t think they were giving their best effort,” Glass coach Randy Turille said of his halftime talk. “I told them, ‘Why do ya’ll think it’s just gonna be given to you? You’ve got to go take it. If you want something, you have to go earn it and take it.’”
Glass (8-3-2) scored one minute in to the second half when Gavin Leverette eyed a ball off a corner kick from Bo Palladino that had been deflected by Fleck. He chipped it in for the equalizer.
“It seemed like all the momentum came to us,” Turille said about the game after that goal.
There’s a chance Glass and JF could meet again with everything on the line in the postseason. That wouldn’t be until play begins in the Region 4D Tournament, which will include fellow heavyweights like Blacksburg, Charlottesville and LCA.
“A couple things fell their way, and that’s soccer,” Jefferson Forest coach Scott Zaring said. “One touch goes their way and they get a goal out of it. So, they did well to battle back, but that’s Randy’s team. They’re always gonna battle to the end. But I was proud of my guys today. I thought they did the same. Just didn’t go our way.”
Miller stood in goal alone during a game against JF for the second time in his varsity career. The sophomore spent part of the season playing just one half, splitting time with another Glass keeper, Hurst Edson. But Edson has been injured, and Miller has been alone in goal since the first meeting against the Cavaliers in March.
His diving save, in which he deflected a blistering shot out of bounds early in the game, left ‘Toppers fans in awe.
“The first half we didn’t play that well, up to par,” Miller said. “The second half, coach was on us, telling us we’ve got to play better. He really propelled us. He really gave us that spirit.”
Oliver knew Monday might be the final game of his career against JF. The first half did not go so well and he wasn’t satisfied.
“As soon as the second-half whistle blew,” he said, “we knew we had to get the job done.”
Ben Cates covers high school sports for The News & Advance. Reach him at (434) 385-5527.