BY DAN FLESER
MURFREEBORO – Zach Schrandt told his Gatlinburg-Pittman soccer team at halftime Wednesday night that they still had 40 good minutes in them.
The Highlanders coach was stunned to see that his players had something more dramatic in mind.
“That first 10 minutes, my God it was lights out,” he said. “It was boom, boom, boom.”
The Highlanders staged a stirring soccer revival, one that had the tent under which the team gathered along the sideline jumping with excitement. They scored three goals in a span of three minutes against Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences, erasing a one-goal halftime deficit in the dizzying process.
The rapid-fire goals by Josue Chicas-Aranda, Luis Ortiz and Ricardo Turcios were enough to cover for a helter-skelter final 10 minutes and gave Gatlinburg-Pittman a 3-2 victory in the Class A soccer tournament semifinal at the Siegel Soccer Complex.
The Highlanders (18-3-1), the defending state champions, will play Franklin Grace Academy, a 2-1 semifinal winner over Signal Mountain, on Friday.
“This time last year I was doing more of the begging, prodding them,” Schrandt said. “This year talking to them. You could see the reaction at halftime was we’ve been here, we’ve done it.”
Schrandt said the Highlanders trailed by a goal in last season’s championship match.
“I’ve told them nothing good in life is ever going to be done easily,” he said. “That’s what makes it so great. It’s supposed to be hard.”