Knights, Kards battle to tie

PALMER — The game between the Colony Knights and the Kenai Kardinals’ boys soccer squads was a tale of two halves. In the first half, Colony dominated thoroughly, scoring two goals early and maintaining possession of the ball for the overwhelming majority of the half. In the second half, the Kardinals chipped away and tied the game behind encouragement of the raucous girls team cheering them on from the stands.

In the first half, senior Colony midfielder Kyle Dearborn allowed the ball to bounce waist high before kicking the airborne ball toward the net five minutes into the first half. The ball went past Kenai keeper Brandon Pitsch for the one goal lead. The Knights then played like the route was on. Dearborn had a near-miss just a minute later and the Knights controlled the ball for much of the first half, meticulously sending the ball to the back line of defenders to redirect and attack over and over again. Junior midfielder Hayden Keuhn made a number of spectacular runs up the sideline through defenders to attack. Junior forward Shawn McMIllian led the charge with long passes to Kuehn or Sullivan Menard in the corner. The Knights were playing a masterful game until the second half started.

“It opened our eyes. We needed this for state because at state there’s going to be way more tougher opponents,” McMillian said.

Kenai made a few well timed plays to apply the pressure late in the second half. Kenai’s senior captain Damien Redder earned a penalty kick from inside 10 yards and did not miss, cutting the lead from two to one with plenty of time left in the second half. In the 70th minute with just 10 minutes of play remaining, sophomore striker Leif Lofquist used a nifty move to escape his defender and attacked the net from the left side with Knights draped all over him. Lofquist somehow made the shot and tied the game at two, erupting the dozens of Kenai girls soccer players watching the game from the stands.

“The guys came out there they believed and they fought battled back. With a solid opponent like Colony, these are the games that you live for. You want to play those good teams. You want to battle and you want to have a game that’s exciting that’s fun to be a part of,” said Kenai Head Coach Shane Lopez.

Sensing the upset, Colony turned up the heat and attacked Pitsch with everything they had. Multiple strikers made runs at the net and felt that a foul should have been called on either side. A phantom hand ball was screamed about but also not called, and in the end the Knights tied Kenai 2-2.

“That’s what we live for. This is a game that we love to play and to have a match like this,” Lopez said.

Pitsch was incredible in goal, making diving saves and stopping shots from close range with ease.

“He made some great saves to his credit. He made a bunch of great saves, but we also had some chances I felt that we really should’ve put away and didn’t,” said Colony Head Coach Jeremy Johnson “When you leave a team in the game and then they get a goal to become a one goal differential, it becomes a game. You saw their crowd coming behind them, the girls cheering along it was great for them.”

Johnson had no qualms with the officiating, but noted that Colony’s own mistakes did them in. A blown coverage on the back line led to Lofquist’s goal, and a penalty led to Redder’s. After the Kards had tied the game 2-2, they got one opportunity to take the lead on a shot that sailed off the mark. Colony continued to hold the throttle and attack Pitsch and the Kards but to no avail.

“Once they got the goal that just fired them up and then our guys started to get edgy or twitchy or any of the adjectives you could come up with for not playing our style of game and playing too quick or playing too forced. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a tie match when we shouldn’t have,” Johnson said.

Colony moves on to play more conference games this week, while Kenai improved to 5-3-2.

“He always says even though we know this is going to be one of the toughest games that we’ve played, we have got to come off the field as tired as we possibly can and make sure we left everything out there,” Lofquist said of Lopez. “Even if it isn’t a win, just make sure we battle.”