The Huskies had a big week on the soccer field with two wins, 1-0 against Lebanon and North Marion.
“(Lebanon) outshot us big time,” Coach Karl Schmidtman said. “But we had a fantastic job by Kellen (Petersen, with nine saves) in the goal.”
The Huskies faced Lebanon at home on Tuesday last week.
Sean McGuyre scored the Huskies’ goal at about 33 minutes into the first half.
The two teams played fairly evenly early on, but Lebanon gradually took control of the game, Coach Schmidtman said. That didn’t stop the Huskies from getting a breakaway for McGuyre.
In the second half, Lebanon got even better at pressing the Huskies. Lebanon took 12 shots on goal in the second half compared to the Huskies’ three.
“To our defense’s credit, they stayed strong,” Coach Schmidtman said. The story was similar at North Marion on Wednesday.
North Marion outshot the Huskies in the first half, but Heath Belknap put a goal away with just two minutes left on the first half.
The Huskies improved play about 10 minutes before the end of the first half and started passing the ball better, Coach Schmidtman said. The teams shot about evenly in the second half.
“Confident would be my best word to describe how they’re doing right now,” Coach Schmidtman said. For the first time, “they have a swagger in their step,” the good kind of swagger.
“I’m seeing improvements on defense, but we still are working on our passing game,” Coach Schmidtman said. The Huskies are 3-1-1. They start league play this week. They played Sisters on Tuesday and Pleasant Hill on Friday.
The league includes Stayton, Cascade, Cottage Grove, Pleasant Hill, Sisters, Marist, Junction City and Elmira.
The girls lost to Yamhill-Carlton 9-0.
“We improved on some things from the Jamboree,” Coach Eric Markell said. Opening their first game flatly, it was still almost like the team didn’t want to play. Yamhill-Carlton scored three goals in the first five minutes.
The team moved players around and fixed some of its problems, Coach Markell said. The team will probably switch players around again this week when it hosts North Marion in its first league game. s