It certainly appeared as though Liberty (6-2-1) would be the team to end the stalemate with Whitehall (5-2-2), but Zephyr goalie Bryson Taylor made two late saves for a scoreless draw on Sept. 21 at Whitehall.

Liberty’s Ian Nikolov took a penalty kick, and Cash Paulus attempted a header saved by Taylor in the 78th minute.

“I was following the ball, and I saw him going in for the cross,” Taylor said. “He’s a lefty, so at that angle, he’s not gonna try and shoot it. I came off a little. [Cash Paulus] is a big guy, and I knew he was gonna try and get it, so I kept following him and saw him get the head and then threw myself in position to get it easier.”

Taylor slid for a nice save, also in the second half.

“That was my brother (Chase) defending him,” he said. “I was like, yo, you gotta get on him. He gets the ball, I’m following, he gets a sneaky little touch around my brother, and I see it going, and it was a split reaction save. We’ve got some big guys in the back. They definitely had some great blocks. They had some great tackles, and even the midfield came back to help. A tie is a tie, and it’s not a loss, so you gotta be happy about that.”

Both teams were without a handful of players that could have impacted the match.

“They’re very aggressive on the ball, and we had to get to the ball first and put yourself in harm’s way, it seemed like,” said Liberty coach Jason Horvath. “They’re big, they’re strong, you’re gonna get hit, and you’ve got to accept that and welcome it.

“The first five minutes of the game, they had the better of the play, and then when things settled down, we started to get the ball on the ground and move it around. We were trying to tell them to get out wide, get out wide, serve it in from behind. We started to do that towards the end, and if we’d done that more throughout the game, maybe we would’ve gotten one or two.”

Sebastian Lopez’s shot on goal went wide for the Hurricanes in the 74th minute.

“Liberty picked it up, and my guys were tired in the second half,” said Whitehall coach Christian Malone. “I think Liberty has a good team. They have some dangerous players. We usually have close battles, but I was really handicapped today, and it’s a positive result for us.”