Virginia Beach City FC defeats FC Frederick 4-0 to Extend Division Lead
Virginia Beach City FC dominated the NPSL’s National Game of the Week on Sunday evening, defeating FC Frederick 4-0.
The scoreboard lit up quickly on Sunday for Virginia Beach City FC as a ninth minute goal gave the home side an early lead.
Jesse Miralrio received the ball a few yards outside the penalty area on the right wing and hit a rocket on goal, placing it in the upper right corner of the net, out of the range of Frederick goalkeeper Connor Andrews.
“We’ve got a lot of good attacking players,” said Virginia Beach City FC head coach Brian Hinkey. “We’ve got a lot of pace, a lot of creativity up front.”
The first half flowed back and forth between the sides, with VB City FC putting a few more chances on frame. Virginia Beach did not allow many chances throughout the remainder of the first half and entered halftime with a 1-0 lead.
Midfielder Prince Idornigie was helped off in the 17th minute with an injury and was replaced by Trevor Knight. The substitute gave VB City FC a huge burst of energy when he scored in the 49th minute to extend the lead.
Ezana Kahsay, VB City FC’s leading goal scorer on the season, added two more to his tally in a four-minute span, scoring in the 74th and 78th minutes. He's scored in every NPSL game the team has played in this season.
“We just stayed focused,” Kahsay said. “We’ll build more chemistry and try to play even better… The goals keep coming because we’ve got so many threats up top.”
The win over FC Frederick came just days after the heartbreaking tragedy in Virginia Beach on Friday, May 31, when 12 lives were lost in a shooting. The club offered free admission to all employees of the City of Virginia Beach, along with families and first responders of the tragedy.
Virginia Beach City FC also held a moment of silence before the match and reserved 12 seats in the front row for the 12 lives that were lost, while the players all wore a white band with #VBStrong written on their sleeve.
“As a team, we really just wanted to come out and put on the best performance that we could. A lot of the situation hits close to home,” Hinkey said. “We’ve got some people we know that have directly been impacted by those events. Hopefully, this provided a little bit of a release, for them to come out and watch the match.”
As for their next game, VB City FC travels to Northern Virginia United on Saturday, June 8, in a crucial game for the league table. There’s a four-point gap in between VB City FC in first place and NVU in second place. With a win, VB City FC would have the division in their grasp with a seven-point lead over the second-place side.
“I think it’ll be a pretty pivotal match for us,” Hinkey said. “Going up there and putting up a good performance away, if we could come away with three points that would be enormous.”