Our goal was to put ourselves in a good spot for sections, to have a winning season and we guaranteed that tonight, again, I’m very proud of these kids.”

Head Coach Paul Armstrong

The Raider’s soccer teams head into the final week of regular season play on two game win streaks. The boys defeated St. Thomas Academy 2-0 and Park of Cottage Grove 4-3, and the girls knocked off Hill-Murray and Farmington, both 2-1. The girls enter the final week of play in second place at 4-1 in the conference and 10-4 overall while the boys are fifth in the conference at 3-3 and 7-6-1 overall.
The boys fell to Hill-Murray on Sept. 24, 3-1 with the lone goal going to Jed Carlson with the assist from Xavier Beal. The Pioneers outshot the Raiders 11-3. Brady Stewart stopped five of the six shots he faced, and Johnathan Braucks stopped three of the five he faced.
Against St. Thomas Academy, the Raiders held off until the second half for scoring with Jed Carlson and Ethan Schaack picking up two goals with assists going to Johan Rova-Hegener and Cale Harder in the 2-0 win.
Against Park of Cottage Grove, the second half was full of action with all seven goals scored in the last 40 minutes. Hastings came out on top 4-3 with goals by Brody Geib, Weston Schult, Schaack and Noah Schmaltz. Schaack had three of the assists with Parker Geib logging one assist as well.
The girls took on Hill-Murray in a fast paced, back and forth game where they won 2-1. Both goals went to Siena Sanchez with one assist to Keagan McVicker. Defensively, the Raiders did a great job helping their keeper Grace Petrich, especially with the rush in the last few minutes of regulation.
Hastings was outshot 13-6 but walked away with the win due to Petrich’s performance in net. In the flurry of shots to end the game, Petrich made a great save, but the rebound made it to a dangerous spot and thankfully Katelyn Wood was there to make the secondary save and prevent the Pioneers from tying the game.
“Tonight was a full team effort. We talked about how to stay engaged throughout the entire game. When we have given up goals, it's because of a turnoff in our brain, like we switch off mentally. And so we just talked about being switched on the entire time, and that was incredible. Every clearance, every pass, every just every save, it was incredible,” said Head Coach Paul Armstrong after the win.
Regarding the save from Wood, Armstrong smiled before explaining, “for three years, we've been talking about being in that spot for the ‘just in case if something happens’ and we were in the right spot the entire night. So, it was very cool to see.”
“I’m just so proud of these kids,” finished Armstrong. “Our goal was to put ourselves in a good spot for sections, to have a winning season and we guaranteed that tonight, again, I’m very proud of these kids.”
Hastings also defeated Farmington 2-1, unfortunately, stats were not available for that game.
The teams traveled to South St. Paul Oct. 1, we’ll have the scores of that along with the Oct 3. Matches at Simley in next week’s edition of the Journal. At Simley, the girls have the early, 5:00 p.m. game and the boys follow at 7:00 p.m. for the late game.