Defending champs eliminated in quarters

Published 3:29 pm Wednesday, May 7, 2025

It was a long bus ride home for the GMC Prep boys soccer team Tuesday night.

The defending champion Bulldogs (15-2) saw their promising season end nearly 200 miles away at Trion High School (15-4) in a 4-2 overtime loss. GMC’s difficult route through the playoffs proved to be a little too tough as they were eliminated in the back-and-forth quarterfinal affair.

With only two seniors on the roster and just one in the starting lineup, this season GMC Prep boys soccer did not have the age nor the depth the program’s three championship-winning teams did. The 14 banners around Trion’s field celebrating their own large senior group stood as a reminder Tuesday.

“That’s basically going to be us next year,” Bulldogs coach Bobby Jaworski said. “We lacked depth this year and were one injury away from having to reshape and revamp everything. We’re hopefully going to have some depth coming in from our eighth-grade group that should be able to contribute some minutes.”

The 2024 champs could’ve used some depth early when two GMC players got hit with yellow cards in the first half. The game went into halftime at a 0-0 tie, just like the Bulldogs’ round of 16 1-0 win over Brooks at home.

The scoreless tie was broken fairly early in the second when Brody Brock, one of GMC’s two seniors, headed the ball into the net with 33 minutes left in regulation.

Then bad luck struck. Trion, also the Bulldogs, had a corner kick with about 24 minutes to go. As the ball was coming in, a GMC player was whistled for a foul on a slide tackle attempt inside the box. That gave Trion a penalty kick, which was knocked home to tie the contest back up at 1-1. Only two minutes later Trion had another corner opportunity. This time the send deflected off a GMC player and went into the net to put the host team up 2-1.

The visiting Bulldogs’ equalizer came at 10 minutes to play. GMC was on the attack when a look to the far post came up empty. The ball was on its way out of bounds, but Shivam Patel headed it back into play where it eventually found its way to Landon Oltremari. The junior’s fifth goal of the season gave the ‘Dogs new life at 2-2.

The defending champs tried, but they couldn’t get the game winner to send them back to the semis.

“We found a lot of opportunities going forward,” Jaworski said. “We had a lot of shots, but they weren’t on target and kept playing right into the keeper’s hands.”

Trion had the luck as the game went into the first of two, 10-minute overtime periods. Another GMC tackle resulted in a foul called, this time at the top of the goalie box. Visiting fans weren’t happy with the whistle, but that didn’t change anything. The ensuing free kick was a rocket off the foot of Trion senior Andy Ramirez that went into the roof of the net and put his team up 3-2. Not long after, Trion was looking over the top and sent a ball into the box into a cluster of players. A GMC defender’s attempt to head the ball away from the danger area wound up crossing the goal line instead, giving Trion a huge 4-2 advantage. Jaworski’s Bulldogs could muster no answer as the home team bunkered down and killed the clock to punch its ticket to the Final Four.

Trion goes on to the semifinals to face Lake Oconee Academy who advanced easily via 8-1 win over Dooly County Tuesday. The Trion-LOA matchup is slated for Friday with the winner looking to move on to the Thursday, May 15 state championship at Mercer University against either Atkinson County or Metter.