The boys varsity soccer team has their collective hand on the door of victory, but it isn’t quite opening yet.
They had three opportunities last week: one disappointing loss in a rematch to Taft but two very positive ties in games against North Marion and Cottage Grove. In their first game of the week, the Huskies tied North Marion 4-4. This was a team that beat them 8-2 last year.
“We didn’t do a lot of scoring last year,” said coach Louis Dix. “We have the ability to do it this year.”
However, in their excitement of scoring, they failed to take care of business on the defensive end. Within 30 seconds after scoring their first two goals, North Marion came down and scored themselves.
“Instead of keeping the momentum, we lost the momentum,” said Dix.
The Huskies’ first goal came on a pass from across the wing by Mark Lewis to Heath Belknap. On their second goal, it was Belknap who passed to Sean McGuyre for the goal. At half time, it was 2-2.
North Marion struck first in the second half. But then Belknap outmaneuvered North’s defense twice, both times after receiving midfield passes from Ben Schmidt.
Dix described Belknap as a solid, aggressive player with a great leg.
“He’s a high quality skilled kid,” Dix stated. “He will go right into people to get after the ball.”
Belknap just thought it was about team speed.
“We had more speed than their defense did,” he said. As far as being aggressive, he stated, “The one who backs down is the one who gets hurt.”
Sweet Home had a couple of good shots close in during the last minute but could not finish.
Still goalie Kellen Petersen thought it was their best game so far, especially offensively.
“The offense put everything together we did in practice,” said Petersen. But defensively, he felt they had more work to do. “People weren’t marking up correctly and taking away shots that normally they should have.”
After the tie with North Marion, the loss in their rematch, 2-0, at Taft may have been their most disappointing.
“I think we came into the game thinking we had improved while Taft had not,” said Petersen. “But they were also a much better team.”
And a more aggressive team. Dix was especially concerned about the number of loose balls (50-50 balls) that Taft picked up simply by outhustling the Huskies. After about 15 minutes of confused play, they loosened up and had four point blank shots they did not convert.
“If we can’t score on the easy opportunities, it’s going to make for a long season,” said Dix.
Taft outshot Sweet Home 20-11, but many of Taft’s attempts were long, wild shots. The two shots the Tigers did score were on set plays which deflected off Husky players.
Petersen thinks maybe it is time for their team to think of themselves with a different mindset and not let a loss be acceptable.
“We need to get into our minds that we are a much better team than the way we have been playing,” he said. “We need to go about practices with a different attitude than we do now. We can put things together much more completely.”
In between the Taft and Cottage Grove games, maybe the mindset and focus did begin to adjust. In their first league match, the Huskies held the Lions to a 2-2 tie. Cottage Grove went to the state playoffs last year, has seven starting seniors, and their only loss this year was to 4-A Grants Pass.
It didn’t start easily. Cottage Grove scored almost immediately and held a 2-0 halftime lead.
But then the Huskies became more aggressive, especially going after the 50-50 balls that were such a problem against Taft.
Schmidt opened the scoring for the Huskies on a penalty kick. Sweet Home tied up the game when Belknap broke past a defender and scored on a one-on-goalie opportunity from 10 yards out. Once again the Husky had a couple of shots at the end of the game that missed the mark.
With their new mindset, the Huskies could be ripping the victory door off the hinges soon.