RICHMOND

You can only sit back on the Richmond High School boys soccer team for so long.

Valley’s defense lasted almost half an hour in Thursday’s East-West Conference clash, but eventually, it all broke down.

When Cody Tribbet finally broke through, one goal quickly led to another and the Bobcats went on to cruise to a 5-0 win and improve to 11-1 on the season.

Tribbet, a senior captain, ran the offense from central midfield throughout the match and made his presence known early. In the opening six minutes, he fired five shots on the Valley (2-9-2) net and spread the ball out wide multiple times during overwhelming possession.

After a dangerous free kick and seven shots in the opening 10 minutes, Tribbet took advantage of a rebound and gave Richmond the lead. In position and in loads of space on top of the box, he ran up to a slowly rolling deflected shot and fired it low into the bottom right corner at the 13:21 mark.

The shot was one of a whopping 47 that Richmond took in the match, with 25 of those coming in the first half, often uncontested.

“From the bottom of the circle to the top of the box, there was a huge gap,” Tribbet said.

Despite taking advantage of that space and taking more shots on goal, Valley and goalkeeper Keegan Farnham held on for the remainder of the first half. Eleven of Farnham’s 18 total saves came in the opening frame, but he wasn’t so fortunate in the second.

A pitch-perfect cross to the back post from Nathan Kendrick in the 35th minute served as a sign of things to come.

Six minutes later, senior forward Brendan Emmons dribbled through the box and took a hard right-hand turn at the end line. After maintaining control of the ball, he slotted it back across net for Matt Holt, who punched it in to make the score 2-0.

Holt struck again less then 60 seconds later, this time on a right-side dish from Matt Rines, and at the 22:39 mark, Zack Marseglia made it 4-0 on another rebound punch-in.

The floodgates were open.

“Just where the ball was played,” Richmond coach Peter Gardner said of the difference between the two halves. “How the ball was played. The first half was like ‘What are you thinking?’”

Defensive wall

Part of what Tribbet and company were thinking was that the Valley defense was tough to break down. At any given time, the Cavaliers had six, seven or eight defenders in the box in front of Farnham, and on top of the long shots, it caused major frustration for Richmond. Even with a lead, players came off the field discussing the defensive setup and how difficult it was to move the ball.

“I think the first thing is to not get overly frustrated,” Gardner said. “And I think the other piece too is you’ve got to move the ball around. If you get down into that zone where all that defense is, you’ve got to dribble. You get in there, get out and you’ve got to have good skills to be able to do that.

“The last thing is you’ve got to have an understanding that when you get half chances, you take them. Every time you touch it, you’re going to have a defender, another defender, another defender.”

In an effort to combat the wall in front of goal, Gardner called out for his players to get the ball wide to Kendrick, Emmons and Nick Adams on the wing, creating one-on-one opportunities.

“We were just trying to get the ball down in the corner and drop it back so you can get a nice clean shot on net,” Tribbet said.

The plan eventually worked, as both of Holt’s goals began out wide. With 11:31 to go in the match, Trystin Shea put home an initial save from Farnham to close out the scoring.

Valley was so focused on defending its own half that on the few occasions that Brandon Thomas or Mason Wyman got the ball up top, they were swarmed by Richmond defenders and left without help. The Cavaliers managed just four shots all match.

With so much of the ball, defense wasn’t an emphasis for the Bobcats on Thursday, but Gardner said it’s the defense that headlines come playoff time. It’s often just getting on the same page.

“We’re focusing on cutting down on mistakes,” Gardner said. “We’re going to focus on listening to each other and communicating. We’re going to focus on those things that we know how to do to make sure that we do them — without taking the creativity away from the kids. Those are the types of things you have to work on.”

“We’re trying to get as many heal points as we can so we can have home-field advantage,” Tribbet said.

Richmond, currently No. 2 in Class D South, will travel to Searsport on Saturday at 1 p.m. before finishing the regular season with rival Buckfield next Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Richmond 5, Valley 0

At Richmond High School

	Richmond —	1	4	—	5
Valley	—	0	0	—	0

Goals — (R) Matt Holt 2, Cody Tribbet, Zack Marseglia, Trystin Shea.. Assists — (R) Brendan Emmons, Matt Rines. Shots on goal — Richmond 23, Valley 1. Saves — (V) Keegan Farnham 18; (R) Zach Small 0, John Paradis 1. Corner kicks — Richmond 5, Valley 1. Records— Richmond 11-1, Valley 2- 9-2. Up next for the Bobcats — Saturday at Searsport, 1 p.m.