STA Boys' Soccer 2022

  Game 11 (8-1-2) 30 September at RecPlex in Burlington vs. Cicero Morton at 11:45 (0-2) Boys Stats EKL 2022   We dropped our first match of the year to a very good Morton team. They had skill at each spot on the field, and they played hard and with a purpose. We gave up an early goal on a hard ground cross across the box, but made a change in formation and personnel and played pretty well up until the last 5 minutes when we returned to a three top to try to tie it. We had a couple of nice opportunities to get it tied, but just did not finish. Muck came close to earning us a PK, but a whistle just before the foul nullified it. Yes, we have lost a few starters lately, but we have been good enough and resilient enough to still produce wins.  We were close today, but we just could not get it tied. That's soccer. Because of a scheduling agreement before the tournament started, we will still play Naperville North as if we would be playing for the title. They have already played Morton t

Game 10 (8-0-2) 29 September at RecPlex in Burlington vs. Peoria Notre Dame at 3:30 (3-2, Shootout (5-4)) Boys Stats EKL 2022   What a match the opening round created. Peoria Notre Dame, who last Tuesday was 12-0 and ranked 3rd in the country, had dropped a match and tied a match the rest of the week—but they were quality. We came out pretty fired up and had some great early attacks, but after a couple of posts and a couple of soft shots, we still stood at nil after 7 minutes. And then our defensive center midfielder, Gabe Garcia, just got rocked. The Notre Dame kid received a yellow card and Gabe received a concussion. He will miss the rest of the tournament, maybe more. We thought our heads dropped a bit after losing Gabe, and it took us the rest of the half to really work out how we would adjust the lineup.  We started second half with Murray at the "6" and Hulla wide right. And we set out to get to 1 before they got to "3." And we did. And shortly thereafter we

  Game 9 (7-0-2) 27 September at Home vs. BV North at 7:00 (4-0) Boys Stats EKL 2022   This was a key win for us. BV North has been having a very good season (Metro Poll #23), and they have an elite keeper who can keep them in any game. But we were able to go across him with corners and free kicks and box and t-balls. We were very proud of the boys' execution. At half, we were up 4-0! After 22 minutes, it was still nil, nil. Even in the second half with Weasy taking the left-footed corner, we just created another golden opportunity with Murray's front post flick past the keeper to an open back-post header, but we did not direct it down for the easy goal. Still, great opportunity, good attack. Check it out! We also got significant playing time for our non-starters in the second half, and they kept the Mustangs corralled, holding them scoreless. The Stangs did create a couple of good opportunities in one of their late second half possessions but George Guagliano was up to the cha

  Game 8 (6-0-2) 22 September at Home vs. Bishop Carroll at 6:30 (2-0) Boys Stats EKL 2022 Bishop Carroll drove up from Wichita for the match, and they were pesky. They played hard, quickly, and with some skill as they battled us to a 2-0 win for us. It was 1-0 at half, and we added another late, but great second-half goal, with about twelve left, to get it to 2. Now we did create 12 corner kicks first half—hey, that's a lot, but we failed to cash any of them as we thought Bishop Carroll was first to the ball virtually every time. And Carroll did get a couple of three rips on goal as well. We thought Seger had a very nice game in goal.  And Kitts added, yet another, game-winning goal.  It was nice to get Garcia back in the lineup, but we will have to wait, hopefully, for Tuesday to see Weinrich back in the line-up. Hamms got some "zeal" and "persistence" out of us tonight as I just thought we worked so hard and well all night. That just tells you how well Carrol

  Game 7 (5-0-2) 20 September at Miege vs. at 7:00 (4-1) Boys Stats EKL 2022 We traveled to Miege tonight minus Gabe Garcia, and still John Weinrich.  We had not really played many minutes without Gabe all year, so this appeared to forecast a hit on our ball movement, but honestly, Bobby Bjorseth really played well at the 6, with Will Fleming taking over at left back, with some help from Kellen Hulla; things ran smoothly. We got off to a pretty quick 1-0 lead on yet another Kitts to Young goal, but shortly thereafter, we had some confusion in the back to give up the tying goal. But we cashed a long Welsh deadball that included a Young flick to Ryan. With AC getting Kitts in with only 16 seconds left in the half, all seemed well after the first half as we lead 3-1. In two goal-lead situations that next goal is so important for both sides. It seemed as if AC had earned an early PK, but the ref did not see it that way. After Kitts scored on the two-man about 15 minutes in, we got the oppo

Game 6 (4-0-2) 16 September at BVSW vs. BVSW at 6:30 (3-1) Boys Stats EKL 2022 Even though we had a few less in attendance than they did at Arrowhead, we offered up just a great match. It was just a state championship-like atmosphere for the match, and it felt important. The match was 1-0 at halftime. We took at 2-0 led midway through the second half, but Southwest cut the score to 2-1 in virtually 20 seconds. But then we made it 3-1 a few minutes later. (Both sides questioned those final two tallies, but they did put both of them up on the scoreboard.) From there we were able to add Weisner as a second "6" to help us ride out the match. Overall though, we got a great team performance with so many different guys contributing.  We also had a couple of our main guys account for all the goals. Barrett contributed two, with Ethan nabbing one. For our first goal, Max Leiker quickly moved the ball wide to Janeway who slipped the ball to Barrett who created the PK ( Check out the Bu

  Game 5 (3-0-2) 13 September at Home vs. BV West at 7:00 (1-1, 2 OT) Boys Stats EKL 2022 Well, new head coach of the BV West Jags, Kyle Conely, showed up with a plan. They parked the bus 9/10 deep and looked for a counter attack—and they got one late in the match with 11:23 left in the game. Barrett Kitts found Muckerman with just over 4 to go to get the thing tied, and then we had a flurry of just misses, and even a goal—that was offsides by a couple of feet. It probably was an entertaining match to watch as we created all kinds of opportunities, but to West's credit they thwarted us just about every time. At halftime, we had only generated one corner—usually a large hint that we are not really attacking as we want to attack. But second half and through overtime we logged 10 corners; quite an onslaught. But only a couple of the services offered us some legit chances to score. Our defense had to get into the attack and they did a nice job of it.  Garcia had another monster game at

  Game 4 (3-0-1) 8 September at BSS vs. Lee's Summit at 5:00 (4-2) Saints Now Ranked 19th in USC's Poll Boys Stats EKL 2022 Well, we expected to see some firepower with Lee's Summit. As we did. They scorched a couple of shots that became goals. Just scorched them. But we played a pretty darn good match, controlling possession and creating some great opportunities. In fact we left plenty on the table. In the end we have to give some hallelujahs for the corner kick. We cashed 3 corners tonight, and we scored the other goal off a gorgeous long Welsh deadball for a Swags' monster header. Those boys created 7 corners, scoring on an unbelievable 3 of them. In 35 years of Saint Thomas Aquinas soccer, we score about 1 every 7.3 corner kicks—not one ever 2.3 corners. We lost John Weinrich, probably our best defender, to an injury early in the second half. But super sophomore, Alex Bissen, came in and just had a fine, fine 30 minutes. Freshman, Jacob Zinkus, made his varsity debu

Game 3 (2-0-1) 6 September at BSS vs. BSS at 5:00 (6-0) Saints Now Ranked 18th in Prep Soccer Poll Boys Stats EKL 2022 We opened the tourney with a solid win over a hard-nosed Blue Springs South side, ranked 13th in the Metro in the 810 Soccer Poll. We were able to tally 3 goals each half, for a 6-0 victory.  That scored is a bit deceptive as two of our goals came from PK's—but for us, chasing two out of two on the PK front his headline news. Swags and Ethan both hit theirs. We did a good job of limiting their opportunities and creating a lot of our own. We generated 8 corners, several dangerous throw-ins, while putting 22 shots on them. Everyone got in and everyone got good minutes—that should translate into a more rested team to take on Lee's Summit Thursday. LeBourveau netted his first varsity goal on an assist from Jack Ruth. It was Max Leiker getting fouled just above the big box that started that sequence as well. Kellen Hulla gave us some very quality minutes at left bac

Game 2 (1-0-1) 1 September Rockhurst at Saint Thomas Aquinas (2-2, 2 OT) Boys Stats EKL 2022 This was just a great high school soccer game that just did not want to end. Several Saints put in the full 100 minutes. Rockhurst did graduate one heck of a team, but they have reloaded and gotten a lot younger. Their freshman keeper played the whole match, and he played well.  And speaking of keepers, Andrew Seger was magnificent. He made a few remarkable saves when we needed them most. Rock scored at the end of the first half when we just quit defending in the middle of the field (and to our midfield's credit they were almost flawless in the second half and in overtime). And Rock scored their final goal when we absolutely did not compete on a long deadball where we allowed a ball to reach feet and be squared across the face of the goal. Andrew couldn't have saved either of those.  We went up early on a nice diagonal ball from Ryan to Ethan near back post. And then we found ourselves