Regional Semi-Finals

Game 17 (11-3-3)
28 October at Home vs. (7-3-0) Blue Valley Southwest (3-1)

CoVID (geographic seeding) probably brought the most improbable first-round match-up in the history of the Kansas playoffs—the two teams who most soccer pundits would predict would play in the State Finals. But honestly, both teams were just happy to have the opportunity to play at all during this pandemic when the season looked plenty iffy for quite some time. 

I am not sure we have played any better this season than we played tonight. We got out of the gate quickly scoring 3 goals in the first 20 minutes—now, granted only two of them were allowed, but we scored 3 legit goals in 20 minutes. I give Coach Jones an "A" for coaching as I have never seen a goal taken off the board for a supposed foul that took place right in front of the center ref some 40 seconds before the goal and before the pass that would have been the assist was made, called back after the same center ref signaled goal and we were lined up for kick off (I know try to make it through that sentence). 

Take a look at the sequence as you try to decide who fouled whom, and then when you are not sure, you probably say "play-on," as the ref originally did.

But to the boys' credit, they did play on to add another second goal about 10 minutes later.

We challenged the boys to take away space from Southwest, and they did. We won first ball, second ball most of the night, and we picked off pass after pass.

Southwest did get the game to 2-1 with 17 or so to play, but Zayveon headed in a set-piece 10 minutes later to ice the match. That was a huge goal.

Southwest has knocked us out for quite a few years, last year hurting the most, so I did think we came out with a definite chip on our shoulder, and we used it to our advantage.

We still have to win four more games, and in soccer, you can lose games because you don't find the net one night, but Southwest was the best team in the field if we weren't. So this was a huge, huge win.

BWhite interviewed his 3 guys for the men of the match.  But I want to give a shout out to Labella's call (Thank you HALO for streaming this game) for the "super sophs"—Ethan Young with the game-winning goal and a called-back assist and Barrett Kitts with a goal and an assist. 

But B found some good ones as well with DJ, Mitchell, and Luke. He found a backline leader, a midfielder, and a forward. And I do think we got very good performances all over the field. We probably had 11 Men of the Match. The Interview.

Spring Hill, 10-0, winners over Pittsburg are next, Friday at 4:00.

STATS:

First Half

Saints: Shots: 7 (3) Corners: 3 (Ryan 2, Kitts)

32:15 Kitts (DJ finds Barrett via ground)

18:45 Young (Welch plays it one-touch long and through)

Southwest:  Shots: 1 (0) Corners: 1

Second Half:

Saints: Shots: 7 (5) Corners: 1 (Ryan)

5:38 Russell (Kitts lofts the deadball for the spring upwards and the header)

Southwest: Shots: 1 (1) Corners: 0

16:37 Anderson (short throw-in followed by our failure to just stand the player up thus allowing the quick cross to the head-in)

Highlights