Make that two straight for the good guys as our defense put on another nice show to shutout Rockhurst on a beautiful Wednesday night in front of another great soccer crowd. (We were missing the Rockhurst football team as I understand that they abstained in protest of recent Rockhurst administrative choices.)
This game did not offer up much flow unless you like pass, pass, foul; pass, pass, foul. I suppose it is just the nature of the beast with all that blood flowing to have so many set pieces throughout the night. We are not too shabby on ours; in fact, we cashed one early, and we came so close to cashing several others as the night moved on.
Our midfield and defense were special tonight. Hagenkord, Stoecklein and Brown won the middle of the field. They did such a nice job of blowing up the middle of the field that Rockhurst resorted to banging ball after ball over the midfield most of the evening.
Finally towards the middle of the second half we had Younger and Kutey back to help win those balls out of the air around the 18-box. Rockhurst is very dangerous on their flip throw and their corners, and second half it seemed as if we got to witness an endless stream of both.
BWhite named Tyler Stoecklein as the BWhite Player of the Match. He did score a big-time goal (in fact all of the goals for us in the tourney so far), but more importantly he continues to play a physical center midfielder, yet still find feet and change the point of attack after he wins the ball.
Every kid who hit the field tonight played so hard. Hopefully that energy continues on to other matches.
BWhite called for raising our Soccer IQ, especially at the end of matches. Well, the last 2 1/2 minutes Matthew and Nick looked like National Merit finalists in the corner there, almost creating a game-ending goal for Kutey as the clock ran to all zeroes.
We love the support we get from all of our alums for this match (And I know we had a lot of future Saints there as well.); so many make it out to the match, or text the boys and coaches with support and congrats. The Rockhurst rivalry is special.
And if you were at the match, you caught a great dance team performance, saw that STA spirit (as Coach Hammons says "Aquinas Proud"), maybe got to speak to one of our administrators (they were ALL there), and hear our great cheerleading squad go after it. It was a great night to be a Saint.
STATS:
STA: Shots: 10 (9) Corners: 6
37:08 Stoecklein (Kutey throws for the Hagenkord flick).
Rock: Shots: 3 (1) Corners: 2
Second Half:
Saints: Shots: 3 (1) Corners: 3
Rockhurst: Shots: 9 (5) Corners: 4
Corners: Created: Kutey 4, Younger 2, Hagenkord, Heying, Velasco
Shots: Kutey 3, Hagenkord 3, Brown 2, Stoecklein 2, Moss, Feuerborn, D'Adamo
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