By Bruce Karnick

The Raider Boys travelled to Mendota Heights on Tuesday Evening and entered the match against Henry Sibley looking for their first win of the season after losing to North St. Paul and Mahtomedi. Unfortunately, a few key, second half injuries hampered the team’s efforts in Mendota Heights. Coach Jamie Swanson did not want to dwell on the 0-4 loss “Not much to say about the Sibley match other than we did not bring our “A” game.”

Those injuries carried over to the St. Thomas Academy match, but the guys really played a gritty match and deserved much better than a 1-4 loss. During warmups, starting goalkeeper Carter Homb, went into a challenge and took a hit to the head. He was cleared to play, but the coaching staff decided to sit him to start the match. That opened the door for Sophomore Chase Harder to get his first varsity start. “He was supposed to be our emergency keeper. Unfortunately, the emergency came in the pregame. He had a busy 20 minutes, but I thought he did well. St. Thomas scored three goals in those 20 but we did suffer a penalty kick call which was an easy one to put in the back of the net.” Coach Swanson explained. It was clear that STA plays a very aggressive style of soccer. The rest of the match was pretty even. “Danny Williams scored our goal right before the half on a volley from a great cross from Nestor Rova-Hegener. That really gave us a mental boost to play the second half,” Coach Swanson recalled The second half of the game, Carter Homb took over as keeper and he seemed to have command of the net. He could be heard barking out information to his teammates and made a plethora of solid stops. Swanson added, “Carter made some great saves in the 2nd half and Gabe Sanchez put in a lot of defensive work to keep the score within striking range for us.”

When asked about his impression of the season so far, Swanson kept it simple, “Overall, I think we are improving, and more goals will come, along with some wins.”

The Raider boys will host Hill-Murray at 7:00 p.m. on September 8th and South St. Paul on September 10th at 5:00 p.m. Then they travel to Tartan for a 7:00 p.m. start on September 15th.

Simon Hedin defends a corner kick in front of the Raider goal late in the second half of Thursday nights home game versus St. Thomas Academy. Photo by Bruce Karnick