East Hamilton Hurricanes shut down Irish in soccer match

photo East Hamilton's Jose Orellana, center, moves the ball past Notre Dame's Robert Kidwell, left, before scoring against Notre Dame goalkeeper Tim Barnes, right, Tuesday at Notre Dame's home field.

Coming off a 13-day break between matches, East Hamilton soccer coach John Millard purposely scheduled a match against a tough opponent to see how his team would respond immediately out of spring break.

Pretty well, as it turned out.

The Class A/AA ninth-ranked Hurricanes used two second-half goals to pull away from seventh-ranked Notre Dame and win 3-0.

Millard praised his defense, which didn't allow a shot on goal in the final 40 minutes.

With the Hurricanes coming off break and the Irish currently out of school, play was a little rusty at first. East Hamilton had better possession, but it wasn't until a Notre Dame foul outside the box in the 37th minute that the Hurricanes were able to put a shot through the net, as Kyle Gallups followed up an Alex McCarney free kick to score.

Notre Dame goalkeeper Tim Barnes deflected the initial try by McCarney.

"It took us a little while to get the rust off, but I expected that," Millard said. "It was good to get that first goal."

The Hurricanes possessed better in the second half, and Cooper Loftin and Jose Orellana had impressive goals -- Loftin on a header from a Jonah Goddard cross and Orellana with some nifty footwork on a pass from Robert Miller.

"This is a challenging place to play, so we were just trying to find whatever worked," Millard said. "I thought we controlled play in the second half and were a lot better in the second half than we were the first."

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6311. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.

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