Battery blanks Monarchs

All week, the Charleston Battery players talked about not looking past Friday night's match with Real Maryland.

Mission accomplished.

Lamar Neagle scored a goal in the first half and keeper Kyle Reynish made two quality saves in the second half to lead Charleston past Real Maryland, 1-0, Friday before a crowd of 2,787 at Blackbaud Stadium.

With the victory, the Battery improved 9-3-3 (30 points) and took a commanding lead over second-place Richmond in the USL Second Division with five games to play. Maryland dropped to 3-7-5 (14 points).

With an exhibition match against the English Premier League's Bolton Wanderers set for tonight, there was some concern during the week among the players that they might lose their focus on a game against a last-place team.

"This was an important game -- more important than the game against Bolton," said Charleston defender Colin Falvey. "We needed the three points to put some distance between us and Richmond, and we accomplished our goal. I think playing against Bolton might have been in the back of some of our minds before the game started, but after the first tackle our focus was on what we were doing on the pitch."

With the Bolton team looking on from the press box, the Battery put on a solid performance, recording its second straight league shutout.

"I think defensively we were very good tonight," said Battery coach Mike Anhaeuser. "We had a couple of lapses in the second half defensively that put us under some pressure, but give Kyle credit, he made a couple of big saves for us.

"We did some good things, but we could never seem to make that final pass to get the second goal. That was a little disappointing because I thought we had some chances to finish them off."

With the Real Maryland game out of the way, most of the talk after the match was about the Battery's historic exhibition matchup with Bolton.

"It's OK for us to think about it now," Neagle said. "All week long we've been focused on Real Maryland and getting the three points. Now that that game is behind us, we can start thinking about Bolton. I know we're going to have a big crowd. This place should be buzzing."

Charleston opened the scoring on Neagle's blast in the 17th minute to give the Battery a 1-0 lead. Falvey played the ball to Neagle at midfield, who flicked the ball up to striker Tom Heinemann. Heinemann made a couple of strong dribbles, then slid the ball over to a charging Neagle down the right flank. Neagle took a touch and then blasted the ball past Real Maryland keeper Brian Levey from about 20 yards out to give him his team-leading 10th goal of the season.

"What a great strike that was from Lamar," Anhaeuser said. "He put it on the back post and never gave their keeper a chance."

Maryland appeared to score just before halftime, when Benjamin Hunter headed in a great cross from David Bulow. But Hunter was called offside.

The Monarchs nearly tied the game in the 73rd minute on a counterattack. Heinemann began the sequence with a strong run down the middle of the field that was eventually broken up just outside the 18-yard box. Maryland defender Nathan Baker played a beautiful long ball to striker Jyler Noviello, who stepped around a Battery defender about 25 yards out, but Reynish came off his line to make a sliding save to end the threat.

Charleston nearly pushed its advantage to 2-0 in the 89th minute after a strong buildup and some nifty passing between Josh Bolton and Jon Gruenewald. Gruenewald eventually found striker Amaury Nunes open inside the 6-yard box. Nunes' volley beat Levey, but the ball hit the near post and bounced across the mouth of the goal but never went over the line before hitting the far post and going out of bounds.

Headers

--Defenders John Wilson and O'Brian Woodbine missed the game after receiving red cards last Friday against Richmond.

--Midfielders Ian Fuller (leg) and Rudolph Mayard (foot) were unavailable due to injuries.

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