The Crookston Pirate Boy’s Soccer team traveled to the Iron Range looking for their first victory of the season, but instead they walked away with a 9-1 defeat to Hibbing/Chisholm on Friday. “I’m not making excuses for the loss, but we were missing a few guys today and some guys weren’t back to full capacity today and that hurt us for sure,” said Pirates Head Coach Lon Boike.
The first half had plenty of action, but it took awhile for the goal scoring to happen. The first twenty minutes or so was played scoreless with Crookston playing pretty good soccer. “I thought right away we were playing really good. We were passing well and getting good opportunities,” said Coach Boike. “But then they got two quick goals.” Those two goals came within a couple minutes of each other to give the Bluejackets a 2-0 lead. However, Crookston was able to answer back just a few minutes later at the 25 minute mark. Usually their strong back-end defender, Thor Harbott played a role on the offensive side to cut the lead in half at 2-1. “We switched up a formation a little bit to let Thor run around with some more freedom. He got a really nice through-ball from Jack Garmen and all of a sudden Thor had a breakaway and found the back of the net,” explained Coach Boike. The Pirates have been looking for that goal in response to giving up a goal all season long and finally got it. Yet, Hibbing was able to erase any Crookston momentum and finished the half with four more goals to take a 6-1 lead into halftime. “We have talked all season about these ten-minutes spurts that we give up to other teams and that killed us again today,” added Coach Boike. “We played really well in that first half outside of that quick run they went on.”
Crookston continued to get some offensive chances in the second half, but were unable to finish any of those chances off. Hibbing, however, was able to extend their lead and eventually jumped their lead to 9-1. “They had a really great goal scorer on their team [Alex Chacich] and he was a total stud. He is right near the top of the goal scorers in the state and he was really impressive,” said Coach Boike. “He was doing whatever he wanted against us and he was just really, really good.” In the game, Chacich went on the score a total of five times against the Pirates to up his season total to 23 goals in just eleven games. He scored seven goals earlier this season against Two Harbors. Chacich got enough help from his teammates as they added four more goals throughout the game. “We are still without Evan Christensen who is our anchor on defense and I think that showed again today,” added Coach Boike. “We were without some other guys as well, and some guys were playing, but not 100%.” The Pirates ended up forcing the Hibbing goalkeeper to make 10 saves in the game but could only muster up the one goal. “I thought we played much better than the score says and I think we can go get a win tomorrow against Mesabi East,” added Coach Boike. “I think some of these younger guys are getting tired of being pushed around and are starting to fight back a little bit on the field and that’s great to see.”
The Pirates fall to 0-11. They have another chance to get that first win on Saturday at Mesabi East.
Hibbing-Chisolm improves to 5-6 this season.
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| CROOKSTON | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Hibbing-Chisholm | 6 | 3 | 9 |
Scoring
Hibbing- Alex Chacich- 5 goals
Hibbing- Grant Price- 1 goal
Hibbing- Zander Cuffe- 1 goal
Hibbing- Ashton Angove- 1 goal
Hibbing- Logan Drews- 1 goal
CROX- Thor Harbott (Jack Garmen)- 25:00
| SAVES | 1st | 2nd | Final |
| Caden Boike- CROX | 10 | – | 10 |
| Blake Melsa- CROX | – | 7 | 7 |
| Drew Forer- Hibbing | 10 |
