PONTE VEDRA – Tallahassee Leon came into Fleming Island on the historically spooky Friday the 13th and gave the Golden Eagles soccer team a little Freddie Krueger with the first loss of the season, a 3-1 match on a full moon night in Clay County.

“Sometimes you just don’t get a break,” said Fleming Island coach Frank Pontore, after the Leon game. “They couldn’t score, they couldn’t finish; this is the first night we couldn’t finish all year long. We could see them again in the regions. That’d be nice. A little redemption and maybe we’ll play a little better.”

The loss comes on the heels of a week-long gauntlet; Bolles, Ponte Vedra, Leon, that Fleming Island coach Frank Pontore hoped would season his boys for a soon-to-be-here rugged district 4-4A championship tournament.

On Wed., Jan. 11, Fleming Island High’s boys soccer team with a second half barrage of shots on goal, thwarted a pesky Ponte Vedra High team to the tune of a 3-0 non-district win Wednesday (Jan. 11) at Ponte Vedra High School. Ponte Vedra (12-2-3) is the defending 3A champions.

Against Ponte Vedra, Fleming Island forward Marcus Murphy was slightly concerned the the Golden Eagles no-goal first half.

“First half did not go the way we wanted it to go obviously, but we just kept pushing,” said Murphy, who scored a second half goal near the two minutes to go mark. “In the second half, it was just attitude. Coach Frank Pontore gave us the right talk at halftime and we just came out fired up.”

For Pontore, the first half lull, as he called it, was almost a positive.

“If you think, we had that lull in the first half against a state champion team and persevered to win, that’s a good thing,” said Pontore. “In my opinion, we have the toughest district and we just have to keep getting better.”

District 4-4A

District tournament at Fleming Island High,

Jan. 23-27

Fleming Island (16-1-2, 5-0-1)

Creekside (6-1-3, 3-0-2)

Bartram Trail (9-4-2, 3-1-1)

Oakleaf (7-3-2, 2-2-1)

Nease (7-2-3, 1-2-2)

St. Augustine (5-7-1, 2-4-1)

Middleburg (0-10-0, 0-7-0)

On Monday, Dec. 9, the Golden Eagles took care of business quickly against a game Bolles team with a 5-2 win in Jacksonville.

“We got three tough games going on this week (Bolles, Ponte Vedra, Tallahassee Leon) then we have Fletcher and we’re going hard, hard, hard at the end of the season,” said Pontore, after the Bolles game. “Hopefully, we’re getting ready mentally and physically.”

On Fri., Dec. 13, the Golden Eagles scored first against Leon with Reid Davis coining up the blast at the 20 minute mark, but that was it for the Fleming Island scoring.

Leon is now the lead team in district 2-4A ahead of Columbia High (16-2-2), also a recent victim of the Fleming Island barrage-laden attack, and should be a likely region opponent for Pontore.

Tied 1-1 at the halftime break, Fleming Island had a shot for a second goal in the second half, but Murphy’s penalty kick went directly to the Leon goalie with Leon scoring just 30 seconds later.

Fleming Island, now at 16-1-2 and the 2012 4A state champion with Cameron McCurry’s header in double overtime the final play, has Final Four appearances in 2014 (lost 4-1 in state final to Melbourne) and 2011 (lost in state semifinal to St. Thomas Aquinas). The Golden Eagles hiccuped the last year with Atlantic Coast knocking the Golden Eagles out of the region semifinals with a 3-2 penalty kick win in 2016 with Ocala Forest beating the Golden Eagles in 2015 and 2013, both in region semifinal rounds.

Against Ponte Vedra, the Golden Eagles appeared a step out of sorts in the first half with main strikers Reid Davis, Marcus Murphy and Mark Suhrer all making deep corner runs toward the Shark goal line, but neither being able to capitalize in front of the net.

“I think we got some opportunities in the first half but didn’t finish them,” said Pontore. “Everything looked like we are about a step off the pace of the game.”

Top scorer Reid Davis, who made numerous early runs through the center of the Ponte Vedra defense, but had shots hitting the crossbar four times and shots narrowly missing the net three times, finally found the mark just after the second half water break at 20:00 on a breakaway against the now-gassed out Shark defense. After Davis’ goal, the Golden Eagles went into a Shark frenzy and responded with more blitzkrieg-style attacks with Murphy, at 9:47 to go, finding Trevor Broadridge on a right-to-left sizzler and, just moments later, with 4:54 to go, Murphy blasting a high missile into the upper right corner for the final tally.

“We just have to get in our groove and then things started falling our way,” said Davis. “We trust the defense, we’ll get the chances and we’ll score.”

Against Bolles, on a blustery, cold night in Jacksonville, Bolles scored first off a quick strike in the first two minutes with Zermeno not in goal, but Fleming Island woke up with Davis finding Murphy after a deflection to tie the game 1-1 just a minute later.

Six minutes later, defender Andrew Labelle fed Reid who found Murphy on another run through the center of the Bulldog defense to up the score 2-1 at 32 minutes.

Reid would score in the second half off a throw-in from Hastings to put the score at 4-1.

Oakleaf, on the other hand, has had about half as many games as Fleming Island with coach Carlos Celis hoping that the clips between games will be fruitful to the Knights district tournament hopes.

“Many of the kids play club ball and travel around the country a lot,” said Celis. “I’m hoping that what we may lose in teamwork and morale will be replaced with excitement and fully rested bodies by district time. We will see.”

Celis, who owns a much-coveted 3-0 win over Ponte Vedra High as does Fleming Island, saw that game as an early indication that the Knights were capable of explosive play if needed.

“That game was a big one for us, but it was in November and a lot of time has come for all the teams in the area,” said Celis, who has just a 1-0 loss to Creekside and a 2-0 loss to Fleming Island in district play, plus a 2-2 tie with Nease. “We can use that one win as a motivator that we are capable and that might be enough to turn the trick against one of the district teams. We’ve been in all three of those games except for one or two plays.”

Oakleaf, with a gap from December 12 through January 5 with go games, has its final two games are against winless Clay on Jan. 13 and 3A-Paxon (9-4) on Jan. 19.

Keystone Heights in three-team tussle in 5-2A

KEYSTONE HEIGHTS - Keystone Heights High School boys soccer has history in their upcoming district tournament with coach Trevor Waters getting his Indians into 13 or the last 15 district championship games.

“We get there, we’ve had some good runs, but our district is pretty good right now,” said Waters, in district 5-2A with strong teams from Crescent City and Santa Fe high schools. “We’ve played both teams tough with a loss and a tie to Crescent City and an 8-2 win and a 1-1 tie with Santa Fe. The second Santa Fe game, we played very lethargic.”

District 5-2A

District tournament hosted by Keystone

Heights Jan. 23-27

Crescent City (13-4-2, 10-1-1)

Keystone Heights (16-3-2, 9-1-2)

Santa Fe 7-8-3, 9-2-1)

Interlachen (5-9-1, 3-7-1)

P.K.Yonge (3-10-1, 2-8-1)

Newberry (3-9-2, 1-7-2)

Waters has the Indians on full steam led by lead scorer Jesus Perez, who has rifled goalie net for 38 scores for the year with senior teammate Ciao Carvalho adding 25 from his sideline position up front.

“Jesus is Jesus, but Ciao is very nimble for a big guy and has a strong shot,” said Waters. “He has a good service pass to Jesus that has been effective.”

Perez has game-highs of five goals twice this year; against Middleburg and Clay, and three goals in games against Fort White, West Nassau and Santa Fe (game one). Carvalho added three of his own for a best game in the Santa Fe 8-2 win.

“If we keep the ball on the ground, we are hard to stop,” said Waters. “We have the best goalie in the area, Caleb Cushman, and he wins games for us.”

Cushman, just a sophomore, and an area top goalie last year for Waters, has 216 saves with nine shutouts for a 15-3-2 record with freshman Landon Ricketts adding playing time with one win.

District 4-3A

District tournament at Matanzas Jan. 24-27

Ponte Vedra (13-2-3, 5-0-1)

Matanzas (13-3-2, 5-0-1)

Menendez (6-10-0, 6-3-0)

Ridgeview (5-8-1, 2-4-1)

Palatka (4-14-0, 3-6-0)

Orange Park (4-11-1, 1-4-1)

Clay (0-8-0, 0-6-0)

District 2-1A

District tournament at University Christian Jan. 24-27

Christ’s Church Academy (9-2-0, 6-1-0)

St. Joseph Academy (7-3-1, 4-1-0)

St. Johns Country Day School (7-7-0, 5-2-0)

Oak Hall (4-7-0, 3-4-0)

University Christian (3-4-0, 2-3-0)

St. Francis Catholic (0-9-1, 0-4-1)

Hamilton County (0-8-3, 0-5-1)