Practice makes perfect.
West Jones' Blayne Turner practiced header shots inside the box six times on Thursday.
He made four of his six shots.
Against county and region rival South Jones on Friday night, the junior left forward got his opportunity early, heading a pass into the back of the net during the opening minutes for an early Mustangs' lead.
"We work on set pieces in practice, not as much as a lot of teams do, but we're blessed to have some players that are really talented at heading the ball toward the net when we're inside the box," said Sullivan. "We practiced that same set yesterday in practice, and [Turner] made it four out of six times. And you saw it tonight. That's what practice is, and that's how it supposed to look."
West Jones beat South Jones 2-0 on Turner's goal and a second from Jasiel Bernal in the second half as the Mustangs opened Region 5-5A in the 'W' column.
"You always wanna win that first game in district play," said Sullivan. "This was also the first time we've played South Jones in the first district game [of the season] in a long time. So that's a big win for us, especially since South Jones was coming off a win against Laurel earlier in the week."
Despite the early jump, the Mustangs struggled for rhythm in the first half.
"We definitely came out strong in the first few minutes, and it's always good to jump on someone early," said Sullivan. "It calms the nerves. But then it seemed like we rested a bit.
"When we play the ball to our feet, we're as good as anyone. We got out of that for a little bit tonight, but it happens. We talked about cleaning things up in the second half. We talked about controlling the ball and controlling the pace, and [in the second half] we looked a lot better."
West Jones had far more opportunities in the second half, one of which Bernal connected on to seal the win.
It was one of those games where both teams were out to win it with plenty of opportunities on both sides," said Sullivan. "Our guys were up to the challenge. That's a big win for us."
West Jones improves to 7-1-1 on the season and 1-0 in Region 5-5A.
South Jones falls to 3-5 overall and 1-1 in Region 5-5A.
