Richards leads Franklin boys past Greenwood

Two matches were all Aaron Richards needed to quintuple his scoring output of a year ago.

Franklin’s midfielder tallied three goals on Thursday to lead the Grizzly Cubs boys soccer team to a 4-0 defeat of host Greenwood. Richards now has five goals after scoring two in the team’s 2-1 win over Shelbyville to open the season.

Richards, a senior, scored once last season.

“We’ve asked Aaron to do a different role this year,” Franklin coach Tony Harris said. “He played a little bit more in the midfield for us last year, and he’s playing more up top right now. We do a couple of different things with him because he has some interesting talents and has an eye for the goal.”

That was apparent early and often against the Woodmen, as Richards needed only 6 minutes, 28 seconds to score his first goal. He left-footed in a second with 20:22 on the scoreboard clock and made it a 3-0 match with 9:18 left in the second half.

Richards likes the new role he’s been assigned.

"It feels great. I feel like I have a really important role on the team," Richards said. "I’ve got a good attacking midfielder behind me who can help me set up. All I’ve got to do is finish them.

"I was told I was going to be playing center mid this season, but he needed me at striker, so I was like, ‘I’m down for it.’"

Franklin sophomore midfielder Griffin Atkison capped the scoring with 9 seconds remaining in the match.

Fourth-year Greenwood coach Dan Weber enters this season with a roster comprised mostly of underclassmen. Despite opening the season with a loss to a county and conference rival, Weber can’t help but to be encouraged.

“I’ve got four starting sophomores and a freshman starter on my varsity team, so we’re very young,” Weber said. “For the first game, I thought they did very well. When we went down two goals, I was afraid — teams in the past might have given up a little bit.

“This team stepped up. They played hard and I thought they played all the way to the end. We had a couple of hiccups at the end, a couple of bad judgments, but that’s just a young team. I think we’re going to surprise a lot of teams.”

Franklin (2-0, 1-0 Mid-State Conference) returns to the pitch Tuesday when it hosts Class 3A No. 18 Southport. The Woodmen (0-1, 0-1) are off for a week before remaining in conference with a match at Whiteland on Thursday.