Voyton’s big saves help River Hill beat Atholton

River Hill senior Ryan Noonan said he knew it was going to be a tough match with Atholton on Tuesday afternoon. 

He knew Raiders keeper Kyle Forbes was pretty good in goal and Forbes lived up to the reputation.

But despite a stellar game in goal, the No. 4 Hawks scored an early goal and relied on their defense to hold off the host Raiders, 1-0.

“Forbes played a really big game,” said Noonan. “We should have scored a lot more and if they had any other keeper in, I think we would have scored a lot more.”

Noonan netted the lone goal just four minutes into the game after he rose above the pack and headed-in a free kick from senior captain Tommy Krug.

“It was the beginning of the game and we knew it was going to be a tough game going in so Tommy lined up for the kick and usually we’re supposed to go back post but I ran centrally,” said Noonan of his score.  “Forbes misread it and I misdirected it into the goal.”

River Hill remains unbeaten on the season and improved to 8-0-1 overall and 5-0-1 in Howard County.

Forbes finished with a game-high eight saves for No. 15 Atholton (3-3-0, 3-2-0).  He kept his team in the game with his aggressive play but the offense couldn’t get going.

Hawks goalie Nick Voyton was no slouch between the pipes either.  Voyton came up with two huge saves in stoppage time at the end of the first half to preserve his team’s lead.

The first came as an Atholton player tried to fire the ball into the left corner of the goal but Voyton reacted fast, laying out and getting a hand on the ball to deflect it away.

A couple seconds later, Voyton, caught out of the goal, dove to stop a shot and just got a finger top on it before defender Eric Greenhaus kicked the ball away to save the game-tying goal.

“The first shot came in, I just got myself set and made the save,” said Voyton, who has four shutouts this season.

He added: “My defense has been doing a great job, allowing me to have minimal saves. So when it comes down to me making a save, I have to do my job and make the save for my team.”

After those close calls, the back line of Greenhaus, Nick Riso and Kevin Kim made it easy for River Hill by not allowing too many Atholton chances at the goal.

“I think we won the game in the air and with our throw-ins and our set pieces,” said Hawks coach Matt Shagogue.  “Atholton gets real organized in the back and they make it very difficult to score. So we were fortunate to get away, I was happy to win and shut them out.”

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