2010 State Soccer Tournament Boys Class AA State Quarterfinals; Stillwater and Minneapolis Southwest Move on to Semifinals
Park High School – Boys Class AA
Stillwater Area 1-0 Anoka
The first quarterfinal game of the evening paired the 4AA Boys’ Champion, the Stillwater Area Ponies (17-3-1), against the 7AA Boys’ Champion, the Anoka Tornadoes (12-2-6). Both teams battled in the middle third of the field during the first half, trading possession and building attacking runs, however neither team was able to capitalize when they had the ball in their attacking third.
The Tornadoes came the closest to taking the lead in the first half from a free kick near the right corner of the field. The ball was sent in short and in an attempt to clear the ball away Stillwater Area senior David Evans nearly headed the ball into his own net, just missing to the right of the near post.
The Ponies had a couple chances of their own in the first half from distance. Stillwater Area sent in two shots from outside the 18-yard box, however neither troubled Anoka keeper Connor Iverson.
The first chances at breaking the deadlock in the second half came from Anoka senior midfielder Jake Carlson. During a run down the right side, Carlson was taken down from behind by Stillwater Area defender Danny Enright. Carlson stepped up to take the resulting free kick and sent the ball towards the far post where senior keeper Brett Ylonen went down to his right to collect the ball before another Anoka player could get the rebound. A few seconds later Carlson tested Ylonen again with a shot towards the near post from the right side of the penalty box.
Despite the attacking play of the Tornadoes, it was Stillwater Area that pulled ahead in the 42nd minute of play. After midfielder Eli Bjerk played the ball towards the far post, sophomore attacker Patrick Roth collected the ball with the Anoka keeper closing in fast. Roth was able to get a touch past the rushing keeper and the ball rolled over the goal line as it crossed the goalmouth towards the far post.
In the last few minutes of play both sides could have found the back of the net. Anoka nearly doubled their lead when senior attacker Alberto Sanchez received the ball from a long throw in, but sent his shot just over the crossbar.
On the other end the Ponies were inches away from pulling level when Eli Bjerk sent the ball over the head of keeper Connor Iverson before the two collided just inside the 18-yard box. The ball looked to be on target, but bounced off the far post and was cleared out by the defense.
Minneapolis Southwest 1-0 Mounds View
The second game of the night was also decided by a lone goal in the second half. Section 6AA Champion, the Minneapolis Southwest Lakers (20-0-0) continued their undefeated season by defeating the Section 5AA Champion, the Mounds View Mustangs (13-5-1). Similar to the first game, both teams exchanged attacking runs with neither team able to score.
Mounds View did come close to pulling ahead near the end of the first half. Senior attacker Chin yon Ollor made a dangerous run with the ball down the right side of the field and sent in a low cross to the feet of fellow attacker Dan Evanson. Evanson collected the ball with just the keeper to beat and fired off a driven shot past the keeper only to see the ball smack off the left post.
Minneapolis Southwest had a few chances from outside of the penalty box, but could not test the keeper. When the Lakers were able to get the ball into the box, Mounds View’s defense quickly collapsed on the ball denying the chance for the Lakers to get off good shots.
Play opened up in the second half giving both teams more chances on net that called for both keepers to make saves. Lakers’ keeper Maliq Hunsberger had a near blunder when he had trouble holding on to a low shot, but the ball rolled out before Mounds View’s yon Ollor could get the rebound.
Mounds View keeper Phil Boje was also called upon to make a diving save when Minneapolis Southwest attacker Ryan Mclean sent a free kick towards the far post from 27 yards out.
The Mustangs nearly pulled ahead in the middle of the second half, when Evanson went up with keeper Hunsberger for a loose ball. Evanson got a touch on the ball and sent it towards the open goal, but it rolled just wide of the post.
Things did not improve for the Mustangs when in the 59th minute defender Adam Kesler was shown a straight red for an aggressive play that sent Laker midfielder Mohamud Abdi to the turf. Senior John Pirsenbarger’s resulting free kick was pushed over the bar by the keeper.
After the free kick the Mustangs gave up three straight corners, but Minneapolis Southwest could not capitalize until the fourth. In the 64th minute junior attacker Shane Marshall sent a corner kick into the box towards the far post. The ball was collected by fellow attacker Michael Pulkrabek. Pulkrabek’s shot deflected off a Mustang defender and into the goal before the keeper could react.
Mounds View pressed on late in the game despite being a player down, but the Lakers’ defense and the strong presence of their keeper kept the Mustangs from drawing level.
Comments are closed.
I thought the first game was very even. I feel like Anoka deserved the win, but BQ is spot in that both team has some reasonable spells of control and attack. Southwest defended well for 20 minutes at a time. They will need 90 minutes against AV if they get to the final. While SW did not ever really control the game, I though they deserved the win.
MICAFAN, Kyle Nelson wrote this report. He’s the one who is spot on. I probably would have muffed the report in your opinion.
Not sure, even though I was there, but report might be slightly off for SW game — Shane Marshall is SW Sweeper, and even though he does some of the free-kicks, I don’t think he was the corner kicker on the Mike Pulkrabek goal.
A shout-out to the fans for SW game—the SW side dwarfed the Mounds View side, SW had over 200 (my estimate) students crowded down in front and the SW parents and fans filled up the home side in the bleachers.
I was an impartial fan observing the Friday night AA boys’ games. I’m surprised no one is questioning the red card on MV. The fact that two kids go for a ball in the air, hit heads and one kid goes down does not automatically mean the other kid gets a red card. It was neither vicious nor intential. Unfortunately, MV, which had been pressing and had had the best opportunity of the night, lost their most effective defender and their momentum. SW scored soon thereafter. It truly changed the game, and SW shouldn’t be proud to have won that way.
I guess, after watching the video of the amazing offsides non-call in the MV girls’ game, MV won one with a bad (non)call and lost one with a bad call. The refereeing in the four state games I’ve watched has been uneven at best, and downright horrible at worst.
I agree with the impartial fan- that was no red card infraction for MV-are you kidding me? It’s too bad that the refs calls resulted in MVs loss.. SW should be embarrassed that two of their players always resort to drama and dives- just play the game SW or Stillwater will eat you alive.
to impartialfan,
Though I did not see the actual infraction called, having looked away for a second, I believe he was red carded for a thrown elbow up high, but you are correct he was MV’s most effective defenders. I was a bit conflicted on that call, since the SW player who was affected was earlier given a yellow for embellishing a foal against him.
I disagree with your: “Unfortunately, MV, which had been pressing and had had the best opportunity of the night..”
MV’s right winger was a huge threat especially during the closing of the second half, and MV had a couple of chances in front of the SW net that were result of shaky D.
Everyone complains about the reffing, the game before had parents from the Anoka side grumbling most of the second half. Those guys do the best they can and there were good and bad calls for each side in each game.
My biggest ref call beef is usually with offsides, I was/am understatnding that offsides is when an offsides player touches the ball or effects play by position in someway, not for the fact that he is offsides when the ball is struck, which seems to be on most calls.
I am one of the biggest referee apologists around. It drives me nuts to listen to people constantly complain about reffing. Every ref I know does the best job possible. That being said, the reffing in the Anoka/Stillwater and MV/Southwest games was about as bad as I have seen in a very long time. It is one thing to miss calls which obviously happens a lot since a ref cannot see everything. But when a ref is making conscious decisions that will seriously affect a game, and they don’t use common sense, then they need to accept some criticism. Both games were very poorly managed by the refs. It was simply embarrassing to watch them put themselves before the game. It wasn’t simply one or two bad calls, it was poor game management across the board. To take the game out of the hands of the kids is the worst thing a responsible ref can do, and that is exactly what happened in both games. It appeared that both centers were more concerned with leaving their marks on the games as opposed to simply keeping the game safe and fair. Very frustrating. I will say that I felt the linemen did a good job in both games, staying with the play and being where they needed to be in order to make proper calls.
I completely agree with 2Cents!!! Impartialfan, to answer your question about the Anoka/Stillwater game, the refs, as they did the with SW, allowed the Stillwater players to continue to with the obvious drama and dives. Then two Stillwater players jumped, sandwiched and piled on top of the Anoka player in front of the net, the ref actually called a penalty on the Anoka player. My biggest frustration is when these types of referees are on the field with their own agenda, can affect the outcome of the game and let a game get out of control and kids can get hurt.
@impartialfan – The center ref for that game was very inconsistent. There were two instances in the second half where Anoka had numbers up on a counter attack and the ref called a stoppage for a player injury. I completely understand that player safety comes first and foremost, however, earlier in the game he acknowledged an Anoka player down but allowed Stillwater to complete an attack before blowing his whistle. Also, when he blew the whistle on one of the Anoka counters, the Stillwater player had already come to his feet. On the other instance, it was evident that the Stillwater player was looking to draw a foul. As soon as the clock was stopped and the ref approached him, he jumped to his feet without the slightest limp. This should have been a yellow card. These are just a couple of examples and I by no means support either school, those are just a couple that jumped out at me. He definitely made poor calls for both squads. It was very inconsistent and severely interrupted the flow of the game. 50/50 balls do not automatically constitute a foul simply because a player goes down. Soccer is a contact sport, and players will inevitably end up on the turf now and again. This does not mean that a foul has occured every time a player goes down. I also was very confused by the call that VLC referred to, but I didn’t have a very good look at it, so I wasn’t sure what the ref saw. It is my belief that player safety is the most important thing in high school sports, however, there is a line that a ref needs to understand to keep from interupting the flow that is inherent in the game of soccer. Lastly, a ref needs to be consistent for both sides. Unfortunately, in this case, he was consistently poor for both sides. Every time the whistle blew, I had to wait for his signal because I never knew which way he was going to call it, regardless of how obvious it seemed. It became a running joke with the group I was with. We started pointing the opposite direction from what the obvious call was, and laughing out loud every time we were correct. At least we got a laugh out of it. =)