By Kyle LoJacono
The Gaither boys soccer team won its first two regional tournament games this year, but only had to take the field once.

The Cowboys (19-4-1) defeated Eagle Lake Lake Region (17-7-3) 3-1 at home on Jan. 31 in the Class 4A regional quarterfinals. They were scheduled to play at Lakeland George Jenkins (21-4-2) in the semis on Feb. 3, but the Eagles had to forfeit the contest after using an ineligible player in their quarterfinals game against Freedom.
Gaither coach Eric Sims said he got official word from the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) around 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 3. FHSAA spokesman Corey Sobers said Freedom will be credited with another win this year, moving its record to 12-5-1, but the Patriots won’t get the chance to move on as per the association’s bylaws.
The forfeit gives Sims 200 wins during his 11 years coaching high school, all with the Cowboys.
Gaither started the quarterfinals contest slowly, but got on the board first in the 20th minute when Jonas Bukh buried home a pass from Cody Hodgens, who subbed in less than a minute before the tally.
The Thunder answered in the 29th minute. Jacob Kalogridis hit a through ball to Brent Moore, who capitalized.
The home squad allowed seven shots on goal while taking four. Lake Region also controlled possession for most of the half after the water break.
“My message to them at halftime was we played about as bad as we can play and we’re not losing,” Sims said. “That’s a good thing. Somebody has to find a way to step up and light a fire under us.”

Bukh worked with Paul Barrett, who was moved from midfield to forward after halftime, to light that fire. Bukh sent a through ball to Barrett that he fired past goalkeeper Fernando Aguirre in the 52nd minute.
“It was unbelievable,” Barrett said. “I started off kind of slow, but I was able to bounce back with Jonas helping me out. He just hit it up to me, and all I had to do was chase it down and get a shot. I missed two early, but Jonas kept passing it to me.”
The two combined on an almost identical goal in the 74th minute.
“Paul makes good runs, so why not get him the ball,” Bukh said. “I know he can finish.”
Sims said of Barrett, “He’s so big and so strong and so fast. Once he gets going he’s hard to stop.”
Bukh’s goal was his fifth in three games, giving him 21 this season. Just having Bukh was a gift for the Cowboys, as the senior forward lived in his native Denmark last year after spending his freshman and sophomore years at Gaither.
“The season he’s put in is up there with some of the top performances we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Sims said. “Early in the season he would have a good game, then a not so good game, so he wasn’t consistent. Now it seems like he’s more consistent because he’s fit.”
Cowboys goalkeeper Carlos de Oliveira, a converted midfielder, made nine saves, six in the first half.
“The thing with Carlos is he isn’t your typical keeper,” Sims said. “The way that he plays is different, and I think that’s played to our advantage. He’s made some saves that regular goalkeepers wouldn’t make.”
Reaching the regional finals is nothing new to Gaither as the program has done so seven times in its 27-year history, but just making the postseason was a bit of a surprise for a squad that lost 10 seniors including its top-two goal scorers and its starting goalkeeper from a year ago.
“We were expecting to get back to regionals even though we lost a lot of players,” Barrett said. “We had a bad first half (against Lake Region), but overall we’re playing our best soccer.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.