Blacksburg boys soccer extends championship tradition 

RADFORD — Don’t think about the letters. Both teams stressed that coming in. The letters across the chest have strange powers sometimes.

They can make the team wearing them believe things will be easy – a dangerous assumption. They can make the other team think its task is impossible – a defeatist attitude.

The letters? B-L-A-C-K-S-B-U-R-G. And only one team succeeded at putting them out of their mind.

Ultimately, those letters got stained with dirt and grass from a celebratory dive to the corner of the field after Sunday’s VHSL Group AA boys soccer final, as Blacksburg took control early and beat E.C. Glass 3-0 to win its record 12th state championship.

“It is a tradition; I agree with that,” said Blacksburg midfielder Shane Mecham, when asked about the mystique of the letters. “But that’s how we felt last year. That’s the sense we got last year – yeah, we’re Blacksburg. You can’t go into a game like that.

“You can’t just expect to win. We knew we were capable of beating this team – we’d played them earlier this year – but they’re a good team and we needed to be focused.”

The Bruins (21-0-2) were, getting early goals from Mecham and Sebi Brown to set the tone in their 19th title-game appearance in 25 years. The quick strikes staggered Glass (21-2-1), which was making its first trip to the championship game.

“Blacksburg on the chest means a lot,” said Hilltoppers coach Randy Turille, adding that he noticed his players backing off too much defensively early in the game. “They’re champions. They’ll always be champions. You’ve got to get past that. … It’s a lot in the mind there with the Blacksburg across the chest, and it showed in the first half.”

While raising the trophy is familiar to the Bruins, this group did make program history. For the first time, Blacksburg posted shutouts in each of its three state tournament games.

Goalkeeper Gillen Beck had plenty to do with that, playing an aggressive style early to thwart several Glass chances.

“Honestly, I was scared that our team would be complacent after winning so big yesterday,” said Beck, whose squad topped Tuscarora 4-0 on Saturday to avenge a 2012 loss in the semifinals. “I was scared that we would come in thinking it was already ours. After the first few minutes of the game, we realized we’re going to have to fight.

“I tried to come into the game pretty much leading by example, come in with some force, some power, show that we’re there.”

Mecham helped the Bruins breathe more easily when he struck in the 9th minute from about 10 yards away. Ten minutes later, Brown pounded home a rebound to make it 2-0.

“That was big because we were putting a lot of pressure on them, and I thought we had one or two other chances we didn’t put away,” Blacksburg coach Shelley Blumenthal said. “You worry about that haunting you later when you have good chances. So the second one was huge for us, but I don’t think anybody was thinking the game was over until we got the third one.”

Garland Smith delivered it, connecting on a cross from Mitchell Williams in the 71st minute – just two minutes after he’d rocketed a shot off the crossbar.

Soon, the Bruins were making wholesale substitutions. Blumenthal got doused with a cooler of water. With Williams serving as the ringleader, seniors Geinda Smith, Garland Smith, David Hirsh, Daniel Friedberg, Andrew Simpson, Tyler Bankhead and Carson Wise came up with the plan for the celebratory dive, which mimicked some performed in the English Premier League.

They dashed to the corner after the final whistle and belly-flopped toward the flag. Those letters would grace the trophy again, but only after a two-year absence that felt much longer than that to the Bruins.

“It’s interesting because the past two years, you don’t always get your best performance,” Blumenthal said.

“Sometimes you’re unfortunate. Sometimes the opponent is that much better than you.

“I do think that our guys were really motivated this year. Really, really motivated to be the best that they could be.”

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