By Roman West

Sports Editor

George Rogers Clark’s boys soccer team showed mental toughness Saturday through a situation they hadn’t been put through this season, being down.

In fact, GRC hadn’t even allowed a goal yet this season before the game with Conner.

A 3-0 halftime deficit faced the Cardinals, but it was no match for their will to win.

First year head coach Nicholas Vogler didn’t let this team get down on themselves.

“From day one, before I even got to see them on the field, I told them the number one thing I expect from players is mental toughness,” Vogler said. “For two months now we’ve been grinding that into their brains and it showed a little bit today.”

Coming out in the second half, freshman Brandon Beltran had the mental toughness his coach has taught him, scoring all four goals to lead the team to a 4-3 victory.

This game is not the end of the season however, and the team knows that.

“After every win I tell them that they need to stay humble,” Vogler said. “When we’re in the district and region tournament, they’re not going to care if they beat Conner, Cooper or Corbin. It won’t matter to them anymore.”

Thankfully, this isn’t the last game of the season, as they still have more to work on.

“We made some mistakes defensively early on in this game,” Vogler said. “We gave them a couple easy ones, luckily we were able to keep competing and get a good result.

The team is traveling to Maysville tonight to take on St. Patrick High School at 6 p.m.