MACON – Greater Atlanta Christian senior Nate Ream scored two goals in a six-minute span midway through the first half to spark the Spartans to a 4-1 win over Region 6-AA rival Wesleyan in the Class AA boys soccer championship game Friday at Mercer University’s Five Star Stadium.
The state title is GAC’s second consecutive and fifth overall. The victory was the third against Wesleyan this season for the top-ranked Spartans (20-2-1), who won the two regular-season meetings 8-1 and 2-0. GAC outscored its opponents 36-3 in five playoff games.
Ream gave GAC a 1-0 lead with 22:02 to play in the first half when he scored from in front of the net off a long pass from the right side from Michael Williams. A little more than five minutes later, GAC was awarded a penalty kick when Wesleyan was called for pushing in the penalty box on a corner kick. Ream converted the kick for a 2-0 lead.
“We’ve played them, so we knew kind of what to expect,” GAC coach Thom Jacquet said. We said we just wanted to make sure we got the first goal, and then get the second one. We felt like with the way the results have gone, if we could just get on them we could take a little bit of life out of them. That’s kind of what happened. I just felt like we were in control most of the day.
GAC got two more goals in the first eight minutes of the second half to put the game away. Benny Harris made it 3-0 with 37:46 remaining in the game when he scored from about 5 yards out. Less than five minutes later, a Wesleyan defender deflected the ball into the net on a Carlos Pineda shot that probably would have gone in anyway.
Abraham Lopez scored for Wesleyan with 4:41 to play.
About the Author
