| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| Haskell |
0
|
0
|
0
|
| Hesston |
8
|
9
|
17
|
Hesston Goals: Jared Coblentz 4, Andy Krabill 2, Justin Weaver 2, Christian Amstutz 2 Danny Yoder 2, Craig Mast 2 Mark Yoder 1, Arsene Tshidimu 1, Jason Dietzel 1
Assists: Jared Coblentz 2, Justin Weaver 2, Christian Amstutz 2, Arsene
Tshidimu 1, Troy Stutzman 1, Craig Mast 1, Danny Yoder 1, Jason Dietzel
1, Mark Yoder 1
Coach's Comments--
Anyone seeing this score is going to think that Hesston ran up the
score on a weaker opponent mercilessly but anyone watching the game
would know that that just wasn’t the case. Haskell showed up with
only 10 players to start the game. Just like the game against Barclay,
I was worried we would come in over confident since we beat this team
once before quite easily. I’ve played in games where my team was
a serious underdog, my team got the first goal, packed it in, and got
a 1-0 win. In soccer it happens all the time. And considering how poorly
we played just one day earlier, I think I had reason to be concerned
– at least before I knew they only showed up with 10 players.
I wasn’t about to have our team
start the game with less than 11 players just because they did. That would
send the wrong message to my players and be an insult to the other team.
I wanted our players to play just like they were going to play Johnson
County or any other game. I told them to play hard and concentrate on
doing the things necessary to get us ready for our regional games next
week. We needed to approach this game like any other. It wasn’t going
to do us any good to just play soft because we were up against a weaker
opponent.
We got our first goal just 40 seconds
into the game. Arsene Tshidimu made a nice cross from the right corner
that Andy Krabill headed into the net. Andy did a nice job getting up
and heading the ball down. Andy scored the next goal as well – a
nice blast just inside the 18. We actually had several nice goals and
some goals that honestly probably shouldn’t have been. Their keeper
wasn’t very aggressive or mobile. He looked very unsure of himself.
Once we got up by six goals. I took
a player off so that we also had 10 players. Maybe I should have done
so earlier but there was still 25 minutes left in the first half. They
did have a player who was going in and out of the game because he had
a slight injury. We took players off, moved players around, but we still
managed to score goals way too easily.
At half time I put in our reserve
keeper, Michael Clark, and put Danny Yoder (our starting keeper) up front.
I just told our guys that all they could do was go out and play hard.
I tell my players every game that regardless of the score, I expect them
to play all out all the time until the final whistle blows. In my opinion
whether we’re up 5-0 or down 0-5, it’s a waste of time to go
on the field if you’re not going to give your best effort. So that’s
what the guys did. We played some nice soccer. We put together lots of
nice passes and crosses. Defensively we shut down the few attacks they
tried to mount pretty quickly. I don’t think I could have asked anything
more (or less) out of my players. They did everything that I asked of
them.
I know it looks like we ran up the
score but I did everything I could as a coach to keep the game respectable.
When we scored a couple more goals early early in the second half I took
off another player so we were playing with nine players. We scored our
final six goals with only nine players. I’m not sure what else I
could have done short of just taking players off the field until it’s
not really a soccer game any more, play keep away and not go to goal at
all, or just calling the game short. The truth of the matter, as harsh
as it may sound, is that their players just gave up. They were just standing
around letting us do whatever we wanted. They had two nice players, but
the coach even told me that many of their players have never played soccer
before. They also had their Homecoming weekend to look forward to starting
tonight and I think many of them might have been thinking of that rather
than the game.
I really do feel bad about the score
even though I don’t think we did anything wrong. But we’re not
the first team to do that to Haskell. Sterling College beat them 16-0
earlier in the season. At the time I couldn’t understand how a team
could allow that to happen on either side but now I know. However, if
they can get more players like their numbers 9 and 11, they won’t
have to worry about this happening in the future. Those were the two players
that they had that were solid players. But you can’t compete with
just two players.
Our next game will be Tuesday October
22 at Dodge City Community College.