SYRACUSE — Farmington High boys soccer has been living on the edge through five games of the Region 1 season and so far things have worked out fine for the Phoenix.
Four of Farmington’s five matches have been a one-goal differential, two have gone into double overtime and three have been decided by a penalty kick.
That includes a 2-1 road victory Wednesday at Syracuse, where junior Jackson Cheney netted the game-winner on a PK in the 62nd minute.
“I was visualizing my success so I knew as soon as I stepped up that it was going in. When you second-guess yourself, it’s in the keeper’s hands,” Cheney said. “You have to be 100% confident. We practice PKs a lot and I haven’t missed one yet, so the guys trust me.”
Syracuse (6-3, 3-2 Region 1) threw a scare into Farmington early, scoring in the fourth minute on a goal by Easton Cragun. Keeper Austin Packer made that 1-0 lead stand up at the half.
But the Phoenix pulled even at 1-1 in the 45th minute on a goal by Josh Foster, assisted by Ben Wright.
“In the huddle at halftime, coach told us to come out strong the first 10 minutes; ‘you gotta get one and that’s what’s going to decide who wins this game.’ You know what happened from there,” Cheney said. “We’ve come from behind two or three times this season already and were pretty confident we could come back down one goal.
“Once we got one, it fired us up because we knew things were going our way. We just had to keep going … a second one’s coming, and it did,” Cheney said.
Cragun’s score for the Titans came after he cleaned up a shot that rebounded off the right post and, other than that, Farmington keeper Jaxon Beynon wasn’t threatened with many shots on goal.
“I think we played awesome today, both halves. We kept our heads high and played strong,” Beynon said. “Our defense played really well. That may have been their only shot.”
Farmington (8-1, 4-1) lost its first league game at Layton on penalty kicks after two overtimes and has won four straight as the first half of the region schedule is complete. Four of those games were on the road.
“Our schedule has had a lot of away games, so we wanted to get them over with and play really good; now we can come in with our home games and finish it off,” Beynon said.
Fremont, Farmington and Syracuse were tied for first place in Region 1 entering Wednesday and the Silverwolves lost to Weber, so the Phoenix are now alone atop of the standings.
“There was definitely more emphasis on this game today. We had to win if we wanted to be on top of the region, and we’ve got to win out, honestly,” Cheney said. “Coach said to treat it like a playoff game, win or go home, and we did just that.”
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