CHAPEL HILL — If Wednesday night’s soccer game at The Park at Briar Chapel were a television program, it’d be titled The Kyle Howarth Show.
Howarth, senior striker for Woods Charter’s men’s soccer team, scored five goals en route to a 6-2 victory over the winless Southern Wake Academy Lions on Wednesday, extending the Wolves’ winning streak to four games and putting them in position to compete for the conference title with Research Triangle.
A few weeks ago, it would have been nearly impossible to see Woods Charter in this position.
After starting 0-3 and losing those three games by a combined 10-1 score, the Wolves seemed lost, destined for an uncharacteristically poor year.
Then, they flipped a switch.
“Part of it was that we were struggling to practice,” said Graeme Stewart, Woods Charter’s head coach. “We had COVID stuff at the beginning, plus then the rain, we couldn’t get out here ... So Research, when we played them away, we were close, so we just got into a rhythm. You can practice all you want, but you need to play and you need to get into a rhythm and get the games going.”
Howarth and the Wolves kept that rhythm going against Southern Wake.
After a slow opening 20 minutes and no score at the first mask break, Woods Charter found that same switch.
By the time halftime rolled around, Howarth had already scored a hat trick, hammering in three goals in the last 20 minutes — including a possession where he got the ball on a great pass inside the box, spun around with three defenders around him and effortlessly slotted the ball past them into the right portion of the net.
“Finding the goal has always been something I’ve been pretty good at and I just never give up,” Howarth said. “There’s always a chance, there’s always going to be more chances. You’ve just got to keep your head up no matter what happens in the game.”
He’d score twice more, with his final tally coming after he won a battle for the ball left of the goal, dribbled past a fallen defender and rocketed a shot past the keeper into the right corner of the goal.
“Kyle’s got natural talent, he’s got that thing you can’t buy,” Stewart said. “He’s got speed, he works hard, his first touch is good … He knows where the goal is. That’s experience that he’s built on over the years.”
Contrary to the show’s title, however, the game wouldn’t entirely be about Howarth. His teammates — including his five fellow seniors — — had a massive hand in both his production and the Wolves’ victory.
Most notably, the Wolves’ defense was essentially unbreakable.
Woods Charter had possession of the ball for what felt like 90% of the game. Whenever Southern Wake would get possession and make their way down the pitch, a defender — especially seniors Justin Galiger or Eli Terrell — would immediately disrupt their flow and force either a turnover or a rushed, undesirable shot attempt.
It’s a miracle the Lions even scored two goals, both of which took place in the second half; the latter coming right after the Wolves switched out their goalkeeper late in the game.
“Sometimes that’s when you need even more focus because if you have the ball a lot, you can feel like, well, they can’t score on you,” Stewart said, “But you can see it can change in an instant. When they’ve got somebody quick up top, it can change in a heartbeat, so you’ve got to be disciplined, you’ve got to keep your shape and you’ve just got to play the fundamentals right.”
Despite the comfortable four-goal win, Stewart wasn’t fully satisfied with the way his team played, concerned about their slow start and sloppiness down the stretch.
Stewart said after the game that he believed they could have had “four or five more” goals had they played up to their potential.
“We were not focused enough at the beginning,” Stewart said. “And we did control the game, I was comfortable with the way we controlled the game, but we lost our focus and we were sloppy and I can’t accept that.”
After the win, each of the fans in attendance, along with the players and Stewart, came onto the pitch to celebrate senior night, recognizing all six seniors — Howarth, Galiger, Terrell and midfielders Marky Noronha, Elijah Heatherington and Nicholas Mann — and their accomplishments.
Next season, the loss of these six players will undoubtedly leave holes in the Woods Charter game plan. However, they weren’t done yet, as they earned another four-goal win on Thursday — this time against the Cornerstone Charter Academy Cardinals, 4-0 — to improve their conference record to 5-1 (5-3 overall) and bump their winning streak to five games.
The Wolves will finish second in the Central Tar Heel conference, just behind Research Triangle (5-1, 6-1-1 overall) due to their overall winning percentage.
Even without the conference title under their belt, they’ll still get in the playoffs as a wild card team under the revised playoff format. They’ll find out their opponent during the bracketing process on Saturday.
“We’ve been fortunate to go into the playoffs every year, so we know what it takes,” Stewart. “There’s not a lot that’s going to surprise us, but you’ve got to match the intensity and you’ve got to earn the right. So it doesn’t matter who you play, home or away, you’ve got to turn up and you’ve got to be mentally sharp and you’ve got to be focused.”
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.