By Bruce Karnick

Don’t let their 2-6 record fool you, the Raider Boys Soccer team is just hitting their stride. After the gas leak kerfuffle at Tartan where the game was stopped in the second half, tied 2-2, the Raiders have kept working.

“They are really coming together as a team right now,” Coach Shane Lanning said just before the half at Tuesday night’s match against Simley. The final score was 2-4 in favor of the Spartans, but it was hard fought match.

Head Coach Jamie Swanson recapped, “The effort against Simley was very good but set pieces and long throw-ins by them killed us in the second half. #7 Japhi Gudissa got the first goal and #23 Brenner Caturia-Piene got his first goal of the season as well. We were 2-2 middle of the second half then they scored two in succession.”

Thursday night was a friendly rematch of the gas gaff as both Tartan and Hastings wanted to finish the match, at least for bragging rights. Under the MSHSL rules, teams can only play other teams in their conference for the regular season and only one match can count toward the conference record, hence the “friendly”.

In the rematch, Gudissa scored on a penalty kick about 20 minutes into the first half. “We then went up 2-0 in the second half when [#9] Gabe Sanchez played an unbelievable pass to [#6] Steven Krey at the top of the box who subsequently buried it.” Swanson beamed. Tartan managed to get one back late in the game, but the Raiders closed out another hard fought game well.

Coach Swanson recapped the JV match as well.

“The JV match today was wild. They were down 1-3 and ended up coming away with a 4-3 win. Neil Folmar got his 1st goal of the season, and Jack Sieben scored the final 2. The winning goal came with 15 seconds left on the clock.”

When asked about the sudden addition of the Section meet, Swanson replied, “We are playing better soccer every game this last week and a half. Now we know we have a section playoff; we will be using our final two round robin matches to prepare for that. Sometimes the teams that go far in playoffs are the teams that are peaking at the right times, not what their overall record says. We will finish strong.”

The boys will play 10:00 a.m. vs South St Paul at Hill-Murray on October 3rd and then head to Henry Sibley to face North St. Paul at 5:00 p.m. to finish the Conference Tournament. Section games are yet to be determined. Good skill gents and keep that momentum going!

#6 Steve Kray takes a shot on goal between two defenders. The Hook on the ball and shot placement looked like it could be trouble for the Simley keeper, but he was able to make the catch. Photo by Bruce Karnick