Warriors settle for tie

WASILLA — There are some teams that can be content with a tie.

Nikiski was on Friday. Wasilla certainly was not.

Nikiski used three second-half goals against the Wasilla Warriors to force a 3-3 tie at Wasilla High School.

“To come back from 3-0, yea (we’re happy),” Nikiski head coach Jim Coburn said. “We haven’t won a game this season, but we’re getting better.”

Stefan Krogseng scored on a header, Sam Taylor Converted a penalty kick and Wasilla knocked a ball into its own net to account for Nikiski’s three scores during the final 40 minutes of play. After the Bulldogs scored on themselves twice during a 2-0 loss to Grace Christian on Thursday, Coburn was simply happy his Bulldogs left the field on a positive note.

“This is just our third time on a soccer field this season. We’ve been practicing in a gym, so we’re really happy with what happened today,”

Coburn said. “The kids believed in themselves and fought hard. Wasilla’s a skilled team.”

Wasilla head coach Blake Livingston couldn’t share Coburn’s sentiments about the tie.

“We were in the position to close out the game and we didn’t do it,” Livingston said. “To Nikiski’s credit, they played hard and fought their way back into it.”

Junior Borja Angoitia and senior Aaron Sharrow scored in the first half to give the Warriors the early 2-0 lead, but junior Matthew Friese accounted for Wasilla’s lone strike during the final 40 minutes of play.

Friese gave the Warriors the three-goal lead in the second half, taking advantage of a 2-on-1 break. Angoitia drove the ball deep into the Nikiski zone and fed a pass to the right to Friese, who slipped a shot into the near side of the net.

Mere minutes after the Friese score, Krogseng put the Bulldogs on the board with his header.

Wasilla found itself leading by just one when a ball bounced off a Wasilla defenseman into the back of the net. Ten minutes later, Taylor put a penalty kick into the left side of the net to tie the score at 3-3.

Livingston admitted those are tough scores to recover from.

“The mental aspect is probably our biggest challenge right now,” Livingston said. “To bounce back from that.”

Livingston said he hopes the lessons learned during a rough second half will be a benefit in the long run.

“It’s frustrating, but at the same time it’s early in the season and it’s probably healthy to face some adversity,” Livingston said. “Hopefully it’ll make us strong at the end of the season.”

In girls action, Wasilla posted a 7-0 win over the Bulldogs.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.