Boys soccer gets first win of the season, girls continue to keep games close

Posted 9/14/22

By Bruce Karnick [email protected] The Raider Boys’ Soccer Team came into the week 02 on the season with losses to Eastview and Bloomington Jefferson. In the first two games, Hastings …

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Boys soccer gets first win of the season, girls continue to keep games close

Posted

By Bruce Karnick

[email protected]

The Raider Boys’ Soccer Team came into the week 02 on the season with losses to Eastview and Bloomington Jefferson. In the first two games, Hastings struggled to find back of the net being outscored 71. Last week, the Raiders had three straight games scheduled, Thursday at Tartan, Friday hosting Richfield and Saturday at Apple Valley. The girls schedule was nearly as busy with games on Tuesday at Farmington, Thursday at Tartan and Saturday at Apple Valley. They were out scored 41 in that stretch.

Boys The Tartan game proved to be very exciting. Hastings was doing a great job moving the ball out of their defensive third and into the Tartan end. They were making crisp, decisive passes, something Head Coach Jamie Swanson had been working to achieve.

“There are combination plays we’ve been working on in practice a lot. As a matter of fact, that was our goal today, to get it forward while stretching them out at the same time. What they did well was they made the right paths at the right time to the right space. And when you can do that consistently. You’re going to create gaps in their defense and they’re going to be running all game long,” explained Swanson.

That movement had the game tied 22 at the half, and Hastings came out firing in the second. Sophomore Jed Carlson scored the first goahead goal, an acrobatic shot on a rebound off the right post. Tartan tied the game shortly after 33. Junior Riley Stewart put in the fourth goal of the game off a rebound on the left of the net.

A key piece to the Raiders success in the game was their defense. The defenders were quick to cover and when they made a small mistake, they were backed up by others, and they were making many big stops before the ball was even close to the Raider net. Those quick stops also shortened the field which led to the next goal.

With only minutes left in the game, and the game tied at four, Senior Brenner Caturia-Peine caught a pass down the right field line and carried the ball past a Tartan defender. CaturiaPeine took aim at the far post of the net and launched the ball. The shot looked as though it was going to sail just wide of the post, but it curved at the very last second, giving Hastings the lead once more, this time at 54. That was all it took to earn the first win of the season.

“I’m just staring that keeper down and take a one touch pass. I look up and I see the far posts wide open, so I just whip that thing in there,” smiled CaturiaPeine after his game winning goal.

“They got tired,” added Swanson. “Their central defenders were solid in the first half. But I can tell they were exhausted in the second half because they didn’t leave the pitch. And when you’re constantly putting pressure on a team like that, they’re gonna break down in the last 15 minutes. And we’re glad that we were on the good end of that this time.”

Another big factor in the game was the wind. Wind gusts in the 30’s had a huge affect on the effectiveness of the keepers. In the first half, when Tartan had the wind at their backs, the keeper was able to dropkick the ball twenty yards past the midfield line. The problem was the teams change ends at the half and the Tartan keeper struggle to get his kicks to land within 20 yards of the midfield line on their defensive side of the ball. That shortened the field for Hastings by at least 40 yards.

“The first half was tough because of that wind,” explained Swanson. “We had to play a little bit smaller ball because that wind was just going to block everything that we tried to get to our outside wings. Patience in the first half was key. Just being mentally aware that what we wanted to do, we were not going to be able to. In the second half, we unlocked it because we had a triangle that’s starting to trust each other. Our wingers were making proper runs to spaces and when you have ball movement like that and you have trust, the trust is probably the biggest key. We’ve had a week and a half to train so we’ve had a lot of time to just work on combination play in the midfield and first touch passing and when you have that much training it’s great, which we rarely have in our season.”

Hastings moved to 12 on the season, but the victory was short lived with Roseville coming to town on Friday. The Raiders were unable to continue the progress on the offensive side of the ball that they started against Tartan. Roseville defeated Hastings 30. The Raiders then traveled to Apple Valley to take on the Eagles Saturday afternoon. Defensively, Hastings fared a little better but still fell 20 to Apple Valley.

The two loses put the Raiders at 14 on the season with Park, South St. Paul, Owatonna and Simley on the schedule for the next four games. Park is first, on Sep. 13, then at South St. Paul on Spe. 15 at 5 p.m. Owatonna comes to town on Saturday, Sep. 17 at 1 p.m. and then The Raiders travel to Simley on Sep. 22 for a 7 p.m. game.

Girls “We played an exciting week of soccer,” said Coach Paul Armstrong while he waited with his players to start volunteering at the Rivertown Live! Concert Saturday. “The girls played hard, kept games close and they keep working hard and getting better every day. You missed an exciting finish at Tartan!”

He had to give a little ribbing to the reporter who had to leave after the first half of Tartan’s game. The first half of the game at Tartan was played mostly in the middle third with the occasional play ending up in both teams outer third of the field for a short time. Hastings gave up a goal in the middle of the first half and only had a few scoring chances to tie it up before the intermission.

The second half of the game was a completely different game. Both teams executed their plays well and kept themselves in position defensively to keep each other out of the net until Erica Endres tied the game at one a piece. Both teams had additional scoring chances but neither team was able to break the tie Earlier in the week, the Raiders dropped a tough one to Farmington 20 and after the Tartan game, they played Apple Valley losing 10 to the Eagles.

Up next is South St. Paul on Sep. 15 at 7 p.m. at Ettinger Field in So. St. Paul. Then they host Chaska at 11 a.m. on Sep. 17 then travel to Simley for a 5 p.m tilt on Sep. 20.

Photo by Bruce Karnick


Brenner Caturia-Peine scored the game winning goal, a cross net snipe to the far post that had the perfect hook at the end to catch the inside of the post.



Jed Carlson gave Hastings the lead 3-2 early in the second half on an acrobatic tap in of a rebound.Photo by Bruce Karnick



Lily Bezdicek had one of the few scoring opportunities in the first half of the Raiders game at Tartan, but the Tartan defense held Hastings scoreless in the first half. The game ended tie 1-1.Photo by Bruce Karnick