Soccer is a fickle sport, almost as fickle as hockey where you sometimes need puck luck to get the bounces, soccer needs that ball luck to get the bounces. It just does not sound nearly as cool as puck luck. Is the correct alliteration ball breaks? Ball blessings? Well, the Raiders had it and then not so much. The girls moved to 7-2 overall for the season and the boys held strong at .500 moving to 4-4-1 overall.
Girls
The Girls had three games this week, the first against Two Rivers on Monday evening, Sept. 9, winning 2-0 with early game goals from Siena Sanchez and Keagan McVicker.
The second game of the week was against North St. Paul. Last year, Hastings went to North St. Paul and came away with a 15-0 win. The Polars are small and very young, starting with some eighth graders out of necessity. Hopefully for them, the experience helps them grow for the future, but now it is not helping them.
Hastings jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with Sanchez logging two quick goals in her fifteen minutes of play. By the half, Hastings was up 8-0 and at the final horn, it was 13-0 Hastings. The Raiders shot 21 times to the Polars 0. Goals were scored by McVicker – 3, Sanchez, Jersey Appert and Fiona Myers - 2, Katelyn Wood, Brynn Kelly, Olivia Levine and Ellie Lavine – 1.
The final game of the week for the girls took place on Saturday against Minnetonka. Tonka had a 2-0 lead at the half and quickly added two more in the second half to win 4-1. Ellie Levine had the lone goal for the Raiders. Shots on goal were lopsided for the bad guys 23-2.
Boys
The boys also took on Two Rivers last Monday in what ended up being a lengthy game after a Warrior suffered a broken leg. The saddest part of that injury is he had just returned from a similar injury, and it was his first five minutes back on the pitch when Sam Sanchez did what everyone thought was a clean tackle. Sanchez was given a yellow card for the play. Then, after Hastings EMS left with the injured player, the officials decided to change that to a red card.
One of the worst rules in soccer is when a player is ejected from the game with a red card, the penalized team not only loses the player for that game, but they actually lose the player’s spot too, making the game now 11 on 10.
Playing a man short for 48 out of 60 minutes is not going to bode well for many teams and Two Rivers capitalized scoring two goals in the first half and two in the second to win 4-1. The only Raider goal was from Noah Schmaltz in the second. The Warriors outshot the Raiders 19-7.
In the second game against North St. Paul, Hastings jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the half with goals from Ethan Schaack and Parker Geib with Hastings outshooting the Polars 13-6. Schaack added two in the second half and Xavier Beal scored once to give the Raiders the win 5-1 with North St Paul closing the gap for shots on goal 18-15.
The final game for the boys came at Harding on Friday where the boys finished in a 3-3 tie. Schaack, Schmaltz and Micah Slapnicher were responsible for the Raider’s points.
The girls will head to Tartan on Sept. 19 to take on the Titans at 5:00 p.m. with the boys to follow at 7:00 p.m. Then on Sept. 21, the girls head to Edina for a 1:00 p.m. tip, the boys are off. On Sept. 24, the boys host Hill-Murray for the 5:00 p.m. game and the girls will follow at 7:00.