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USA Team Handball’s oldest rivalry match took place last night at the Air Force Academy with Army (West Point) coming away with a 40-28 victory.
The first half started slowly with both teams initially having trouble scoring in their set offenses. Air Force took their sole lead of the match (3-2) after 8 minutes of play, but Army scored 2 goals in quick succession to retake the lead. Air Force managed to stay with 1-2 goals for another 10 minutes, but the end of the half saw Army pull away for an 18-13 halftime score.
To start the 2nd half, Army used an aggressive 5-1 defense and point man Mike Turner rattled the Air Force causing several turnovers. The extra pressure resulted in a 5-0 goal blitz in just 3 minutes to open up a 23-13 lead. From then on the teams traded goals for the rest of the way with Air Force never managing to come closer in 10 goals.
Kendrick Thomas who led all scorers with 9 goals was pleased with Army’s performance, emphasizing that it was a big game for Army and that he hadn’t lost to Air Force and wanted to keep that tradition going.
Air Force, goalie and team captain, Austin Faulkner, was disappointed with the loss, noting the team seemed a bit tired from last weekend’s tournament in Chicago. And, that the 12 goal loss was a bit of a let down since they had actually played teams like NYAC and a club team from Minsk.
Both teams are gearing up for the season and a rematch at College Nationals is more than likely. For more on the match and Army and Air Force’s upcoming season click on the podcast link for the complete interviews with Army’s Kendrick Thomas and Air Force’s Austin Faulkner.
Scoring (Army): 40
Kendrick Thomas 9
Trey Neville 6
Ryan Thistlewood 4
Will Considine 5
Nathan Chillian 4
Mike Turner 4
Luke Windish 3
Rob Purdy 3
Matt Allgor 2
Scoring (Air Force): 28
Nathan Luther 5
Quentin Riddle 4
Mark Simpson 3
Grant Gardiner 3
Jackson Cole 3
Rich Vaughn 2
Will Walker 2
Bryan Brown 2
Kyle Grushtka 2
Tevon Miller 1
Emari Hill 1