The Bainbridge High Schools boys’ soccer team suffered a tough loss to the Thomas County Central Yellow Jackets, falling 4-3 following a shootout. TCC took advantage of the game early, scoring two first half goals as they took advantage of a defensive Bearcat team (2-2, 0-2).

“The first 40 minutes, we were not moving to space, we were not playing any offense, we allowed them to dictate that we were going to play defense,” head coach Rick Lewis said. “The two shots that we did manage to have were both with just one person up there and obviously not effective.”

Lewis and his squad came out of halftime with a different attitude and controlled much of the second 40 minutes of the game.

“I am struggling with the team getting out of the defensive mind,” Lewis said. “They are thinking that it is our job to play defense and get lucky with a goal and we are trying to get them into the mindset to play offense first and foremost and let the other team be discombobulated and outnumbered.”

As part of the offensive mindset, Lewis looks for his players to take no more than two touches of the ball at a time, one to receive it and one to either pass or shoot.

“The main problem we had in that first half, is we had players dribbling the ball up to nine touches,” Lewis said. “We are a two-touch team. We had our conversation and we went back after halftime and we played for the most part two-touch soccer.”

In the second half, Bainbridge scored three straight goals to take a 3-2 late in the game, but a lapse in concentration allowed TCC to quickly tie the game and force overtime.

“There was a minute-forty left and we scored [to take the lead]” Lewis said. “By the time we got our guys from celebrating a little too early and back on the field, it took TCC about 14-seconds to score.”

Neither team could find the back of the net during the two overtime periods and the game had to go into a shootout to decide the victor with TCC coming out on top 3-2 for an official 4-3 victory.

Bainbridge traveled to Harris County for a region game on Friday and will host Cairo at Centennial Field on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.