The Nease Panthers will take on the Matanzas Pirates at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Nease is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 3.2 goals per game this season.
Nease took a loss when they played away from home last Thursday, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed last Friday. They put the hurt on Fernandina Beach with a sharp 7-1 victory. It was an even better day for Tyler Ghazanfari as he scored three goals for his team.
Pablo Diaz, who's played more minutes than anyone else on the Nease squad sat out for Friday's game. With Diaz sidelined, Nease had to make some big changes to the lineup. Samuel Ortiz played for 70 minutes having averaged 46.2 this season and Tegan Bartell got 80 vs. an average of 51.1.
Meanwhile, Matanzas gave up the first goal last Friday, but they didn't let that get them down. They narrowly escaped with a win as the squad sidled past Lake Wales 3-2. The victory was nothing new for the Pirates as they're now sitting on three straight.
Matanzas is also on a roll lately: they've won seven of their last nine contests, which provided a nice bump to their 11-3-1 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they scored 26 goals over those nine matches. As for Nease, they pushed their record up to 7-5-3 with the win, which was their third straight at home.
Nease took their victory against Matanzas in their previous matchup back in January of 2017 by a conclusive 4-0. The rematch might be a little tougher for Nease since the team won't have the home-pitch advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
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