Anytime Crawfordsville and Tri-West boys soccer square off, fans are usually treated to a phenomenal soccer game. A year ago Cville fell to Bruins 3-2 while two years ago during the regular season CHS bested the Bruins 3-2 in overtime before Tri-West got their revenge and ended the Athenians season by defeating them 2-1 in the sectional.
Saturday the two SAC rivals squared off again and to no one’s surprise played a thrilling match. With Cville leading 1-0 looking to hold on in regulation but the Bruins, with three minutes left in the game, finally broke through thanks to Cortland Williiams late goal. That sent the game to overtime where in both seven minute periods neither team could break the 1-1 tie. The key SAC game would go to penalty kicks to decide a winner and the Athenians rose to the challenge, winning 4-2 in penalty kicks to pick remain un-beaten in the Sagamore Conference.
“Everytime we play Tri-West we know it’s going to be a competitive hard fought game so kudos to them because they have a really great program over there,” Cville coach Marcus Hale said. “I’m really proud of the way our kids bounced back after giving up that late goal. We always tell them to keep competing and that’s exactly what they did today.”
The four penalty kick goals for CHS were scored by Jaziel Gil-Herrera, Kevin Puerto, Patrick Corado, and Jayden Callejas. The goal by Callejas sealed the Athenian win. Goalie Alec Saidian played his part in the PK’s as well denying the Bruins on two of their four shots.
“We do practice penalty kicks periodically throughout the year,” Hale said. “It gives us a good idea of what we’ll do if this situation comes up whether that be in a conference game or in the post-season. All of those guys who took those shots have plenty of experience in this situation and that’s something that makes us feel really confident if and when we have to go to PK’s. Alec too has plenty of experience in goal saving those kicks just in a few years he’s been playing. He’s learned quite a bit in a short amount of time on what he needs to do in these situations.”
Crawfordsville (4-3, 3-0 SAC) got their one goal in regulation from Manuel Olvera while in the penalty kicks, Tri-West (3-5 1-1 SAC) got their two goals from Mason Mendenhall and Samuel Keeling.
Cville now continues what is an important stretch of games for the team as on Tuesday they’ll travel to take on county rival Southmont before concluding the week on Thursday against Frankfort. If the Athenians are able to come out on top in both games next week, it would put them at 5-0 in the SAC and in the drivers seat for them to claim another conference title.
“This group has a lot of goals they want to accomplish and winning the conference is up there near the top,” Hale said. “So do to that we had to win today. South isn’t going to be an easy game and we can’t take them lightly. We’ll need to go in and get a good result. WE have to take one game at a time and not look ahead.”
The game on Tuesday agaisnt South can be heard on Thunder 103.9 WIMC with Jared McMurry and Kevin Jett.
