Bulldog soccer team rallies for Ritz

    Murphy – Losing a key player to injury is never easy to overcome. Especially when you only have 12 rostered players in a sport where 11 of them are on the field playing.
    But when Murphy lost junior Luke Ritz just 15 minutes into their second game of the season, the Bulldogs rallied together and left it all on the field.
    The Bulldogs fought tooth and nail in the last six minutes, desperately aiming to keep Tallullah Falls from finding the tie and when the final buzzer sounded, erupted in celebration with a 2-1 victory.
    “I mean, what a game,” Murphy head coach Justin Butler said. “To have one of our top players go out with an injury. These guys rallied together, no subs, no nothing, and dug in for 65 minutes of playing against a talented team. These kids quite honestly just gave a lesson in what it is to have heart.”
    After Ritz left in an ambulance with a dislocated ankle, Butler said he huddled his team up and gave them a choice.
    “First thing I asked them was, ‘Hey, look. Do you guys want to play?” Butler said. “And not one of them hesitated for a second in saying ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘Here’s what it’s going to take. You’re going to have to dig deeper than we normally do. Let’s get him a win,’ and that’s what these guys are about. We’re one big happy dysfunctional family and we love it that way.”
    The Bulldogs held a 1-0 lead when Ritz’s injury occurred and carried the lead into halftime against the Tallullah Falls Indians.
    But in the opening minutes of the second half, Tallullah Falls found the equalizer.
    For the remainder of the second half, both teams slugged it out in a proverbial dogfight, with neither team being able to break the tie.
    Until Murphy junior Kenneth Parker, who scored the Bulldogs’ goal in the first half, found the back of the net for the go-ahead score with just over six minutes remaining of game time.
    Parker chased down a errant cross that slipped through the Indians’ keeper’s arms and launched the ball into the net.
    With their first win of the season under their belts, the Bulldogs now look ahead to their matchup with a tough Franklin Panther team on Sept. 19.