It is not quite how the Raiders wanted to close a very successful regular season, but weird things seem to happen at South St. Paul’s Ettinger field more often than not. The trip for the Raider girls ended in a 4-4 tie on a weird last-minute goal by the Packers. Two days later, the Raiders dismantled Simley 4-1.
Against South St. Paul, the game was a back-and-forth affair. Hastings had a 3-2 lead at halftime and eventually the Packers were able to tie the game at three with less than 20 minutes remaining in the game. The Raiders took the lead with just a few minutes left and looked to be in control of the game right up to the last minute.
With less than a minute left, a Hastings turnover at midfield allowed the Packers to launch a high desperation shot toward the goal. Raider keeper Grace Petrich had already committed to moving forward to stop a potential break away when the shot was launched and there was nothing she could do. The ball was yards over her head, and it was just one of those odd shots that don’t happen very often. The game was tied with less than a minute left. The Raiders were stunned to walk out of Ettinger Field with a tie.
Hastings made the trip up Highway 52 and took out their frustrations on an unsuspecting Simley team. By the time the first half was over, Hastings was up 3-0 and the game finished with a 4-1 Raider win. But the oddities did not stay at South St. Paul. Petrich made a play on a ball and ended up outside the goalie box when she picked up the ball. The details of the play were not exactly clear, but it resulted in Petrich receiving a yellow card.
When a player receives a yellow card, they need to leave the pitch until the next stoppage of play. This is where things became, for a lack of a better word, weird. Hastings does not have a true backup goalie. In fact, Petrich is the only goalie listed on the varsity roster and she was just sent off the pitch. What did head coach Paul Armstrong do? He picked one of his most athletic players to do something out of her comfort zone. He put Keagan McVicker in goal.
McVicker’s experience as a basketball player gives her the skills needed to track the ball well and do something most soccer players don’t do, use their hands to make stops. Aside from having the nervousness of going into the net for the first time, in a varsity game, there was an extra layer of stress for McVicker to handle, the yellow card also gave Simley a penalty kick, which she was going to have to defend.
McVicker dawned the neon overshirt, put the keeper’s gloves on and within a minute of the surprise role, she made a key penalty kick stop to keep the Spartans off the board. Luckily, the Raiders added their fourth goal about 1:20 after the save, so Petrich was able to return quickly.
The best part of that whole part of the game is this; McVicker had just become the first known Raider, boy or girl, to record a goal, an assist and a true save as a goalie in a varsity soccer game. The key piece to that stat line is the “known” piece. In checking with Raider history guru Dick Cragg, he said he had never heard of such a thing happening to his knowledge either.
With the win against Simley, the girls finished the season 11-4-1 overall and 5-1 in the Metro East Conference. They finished second in the conference behind Mahtomedi which was 7-0 in conference play. Prior to the section meeting, Hastings was in third place in the section. Eagan was in first with a 5-0 section record, Rosemount was in second with a 2-2 section record, Hastings in third with a 5-0 section record and Eastview was in fourth with a 5-2 section record.
Hastings had defeated Eastview and had a much better overall record at 11-4-1 compared to Eastview’s 6-8-2 and Hastings overall record was better than Rosemount’s 9-4. There was a strong argument to put Hastings as the number two seed for sections and if that were not the end result, there is no reason that Hastings should have been less than the third seed. But it has been reported numerous times prior that the section seeding meetings are rarely fair to the outcast Raiders because the section is largely made up of teams in one conference with the Raiders being either the lone team or one of two teams from the Metro East Conference so they constantly get voted down from where they should be seeded.
With that in mind, Hastings was pushed into the fourth seed with other teams placing Eastview ahead of Hastings despite the Lightnings horrible record compared to Hastings and the fact that Hastings had the head-to-head tie breaking win over them.
As the fourth seed, Hastings will have hosted the fifth seed Park on Tuesday. That game was after press and before the papers are delivered, so we will update our Facebook page with the results and if another game is scheduled. Here are the options for the schedule and you can see the bracket with this story to figure out the remaining games as long as Hastings keeps winning.
If Hastings wins, they will play the winner of (1) Eagan and (8) Burnsville on Oct. 10. If Eagan wins, it will be at Eagan at 7:00 p.m., if Burnsville gets the upset, Hastings will host Burnsville at 7:00 p.m.
If Hastings falls against Park, the Raiders season will be over.