by Bruce Karnick

[email protected]

Hastings played host to Simley on Tuesday. The ladies started the night at 5:00 and for the first half, both teams seemed to be balancing out testing each other in the offensive end of the pitch while keeping their defensive end secure. Sophomore Keeper Ava Doffing was back in the starting lineup after an injury forced her to take a few games off. Backup keeper Lexi Qualy did as nice job in relief of Doffing over the couple game stretch.

At halftime, the game was tied 0-0 and both teams became a bit more aggressive on the offensive side of the ball, taking more chances. Regulation ended with the score tied 1-1. Everyone knows that soccer is simply a little on the different side. The game itself seems to try to find quirky ways to stand out, and overtime is no exception.

For high school games, they can and do end in a tie, but that is not the quirky part of overtime. Overtime in high school soccer is not sudden death, it’s two periods that last five minutes each. If one team scores 30 seconds into the overtime, they still play the remaining nine minutes, 30 seconds. If the game is tied after the overtime periods during the regular season, it ends in a tie. If the game is tied in a playoff situation, then it goes to a shootout.

Both teams played hard and aggressive during the overtime periods, with strong keeper play by Doffing and quick defensive play, the Raiders held on to the tie.

The boys took the field for the 7:00 game. Hastings jumped out to the early lead with a beautiful goal by Nestor Rova-Hegener. “I was running down the field. The guy headed the ball a little bit towards me. I remember kind of in slow motion, and bits and pieces, but I took the touch down, and as I was falling, I just, I thought you know I’m gonna just try to try to like finesse it far post, as I was falling, I got the slightest touch on it. I thought it was going wide and then roll it rolled slowly curved in the corner for me. I was like, on top of the world after that.”

Hastings took a 2-0 lead into halftime and were in control of the game. It was a solid 74 minutes and 49 seconds of soccer that kept the Raiders ahead by two until Simley scored with 5:01 remaining to make it 2-1.

“The focus was there. The only problem is you have to keep that focus for all 80. And when you take your eye off the ball for a second, things happen the way they did,” explained boys head coach Jamie Swanson. “They played gritty like we asked them to. They just kept creating chances over the course of the game and in sometimes they go in and credit Simley that goal was a rip. Unfortunately, the other one was just a little, little weird corner kick and we just had too many of those this year.”

The rip that Swanson referred too was the final goal to tie the game with less than a minute to play. Simley was in full on press mode. Think pulled goalie in hockey aggressive. Shot after shot, clear after clear, stop after stop, the Raider defense was holding firm, then a yellow card happened.

Carter Homb had played amazing all night. The senior keeper had a goal kick coming from one of the missed shots by Simley. Homb was doing the veteran move of taking his time positioning the ball to kick it. Doing what he could to eat up as much time off the clock, unfortunately, the official thought he was taking too much time and gave him a yellow card for it. For every other position, a yellow card means they need to leave the pitch, for keepers, that is not normally the case. For some reason, the official escorted him off and the backup, Chase Harder, had to scramble on to the field to take his place for the final minute of the game. Harder is a very capable backup, that was thrust into an unfortunate situation. He had no chance to warm up or prepare.

The throw from the corner bounced off a Raider head right to the awaiting foot of a Simley player and in a split second, the rocket shot went past Harder. The shot, had Harder been playing all game, would have likely been blocked by him as he barely missed it to his left. Homb would have had it too, had he not been taken out of the game. Instead, the goal went in, and the game was headed to overtime.

Overtime for the boy’s game was surprising slow paced compared to what fans saw the last ten minutes of play. Both teams seemed a bit spent from regulation and after two bonus periods, the final remained 2-2.

On Thursday, both teams traveled to Hill-Murray to take on the Pioneers. The Pioneers are part of the top teams in the state. Both Raider teams were shut out; the girls fell 4-0 and the boys 9-0. Saturday, the boys had a bonus game home against Stillwater. The Ponies had a 5-0 lead at the half, outshooting Hastings 18-0. By the end of the game, Stillwater had six goals on 32 shots and Hastings was stifled by Stillwaters swarming defense with zero goals on two shots.

As of Monday, the girls are 2-7-2 overall on the season, 1-1-2 with five points in the Metro East Conference, which puts them in fifth.

The boys are 3-7-1 overall on the season and 2-11 with seven points in the Metro East Conference. This puts them in fourth.

Up next for the girls Monday 7:00 p.m. at Two Rivers, Wednesday 7:00 p.m. at North St. Paul. Saturday, October 2, Burnsville comes to town, Tuesday, October 5, 5:00 p.m. at Visitation and the final regular season game at home, 7:00 p.m. on October 7 against Mahtomedi.

Up next for the boys, Monday 5:00 p.m. at Two Rivers, Wednesday 5:00 p.m. at North St. Paul, Tuesday, October 5, 7:00 p.m. at St. Thomas Academy and the final regular season game at home, 7:00 p.m. on October 7 against Mahtomedi.

The first goal of the boys game was scored by Nestor Rova- Hegener on Tuesday off this throw in. Steven Kray, (behind Rova-Hegener) helped move the ball to the offensive zone for the goal. Photo by Bruce Karnick.