| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| Hesston |
0
|
0
|
0
|
| Neosho County |
3
|
2
|
5
|
1st Half – 1 NC goal Derek Schaper (unassisted); 2 NC goal Adrian Smith (assist Marcus Androde); 3 NC goal Kris Fochran (unassisted)
2nd Half – 4 NC goal Derek Schaper (assist Cody Wirth); 5 NC goal Travis Yoakum (unassisted)
Shots on goal: HC 5 NC 20
Saves: HC Kyle Beun 15 NC Caleb Shroeder
Coach's Comments--
Hesston’s first Region IV game
started off promising but ended in disappointment. For the first 35
minutes the game was fairly even with both teams playing quality soccer.
Hesston played defense extremely well, shutting down most attacks well
before they had a chance to become dangerous. The Larks created several
opportunities of their own. Jared Coblentz and Arsene Tshidimu combined
with solid play from the midfield gave NC plenty to worry about. The
first break looked like it was going to go to Hesston when Tshidimu
was brought down in the box. The penalty kick, taken by Tshidimu, went
high and NC seemed to gain some momentum by their good fortune. The
field seemed to tilt toward Hesston’s goal as NC applied more and
more pressure. NC’s good fortune continued when a seemingly harmless
play turned disastrous as a misplayed ball in the back led to a breakaway
on goal. HC’s keeper, Kyle Beun, made a valiant effort but was
unable to stop Derek Schaper from putting NC up 1-0 35 minutes into
the game.
From there things started to go
down hill for the Larks. While NC’s first goal was pure opportunism
their second goal was something to be admired. Adrian Smith hit a nice
one-time volley into the side netting to put Neosho up 2-0. NC rounded
out the first half by capitalizing on HC’s inability to clear the
ball inside the penalty box with time running down.
Hesston tried to regroup for the
second half and ignore the 3-0 deficit, but there was little change.
Neosho dominated play and managed to capitalize on another bad defensive
play when NC’s Schaper put in his second goal of the match off
a chip over the defense on a free kick just beyond the penalty area.
This fourth goal really dealt a blow to our team. We probably could
have felt good about coming out with a 3-0 loss if we could have played
a better second half. We were caught trying to draw them offside on
the free kick and they just played it very well. Those things happen
but the worst part was that we stopped and looked at the officials instead
of trying to recover. Their player hesitated long enough that we might
have been able to block it or at least make him panic had he had pressure
coming at him. Just a mental mistake by several players.
As if being down 4-0 wasn’t
bad enough Neosho topped it off with their best goal of the day. Travis
Yoakum plastered a ball from 20 yards out into the upper right corner
before anyone could blink. Had that been the only goal of the day we
probably would have felt better about the loss. It was one of those
goals that you just tip your hat to and say…Wow.
Overall, our players played hard
but there were just too many defensive break downs. For most of the
game we just looked confused defensively and I take most of the blame
for that. The most disappointing thing was not the loss but the bickering
and negative talk that seemed to cloud everything else for more than
half of the game. Neosho is a good team, but there is no way they should
have beat us 5-0. The Larks must find away to close up those defensive
problems quickly with perennial powerhouse and nationally ranked Johnson
County coming to Hesston in just two days. The Johnson County game will
either revive our team or potentially send us spiraling lower. A large
determining factor is how our players bounce back mentally. We’ll
have to make some changes either in our formation or line up or it will
be a long weekend. The Larks game against Johnson County will be at
2 p.m. (Hesston’s first home game).