The Crookston Pirate Boy’s Soccer team was looking for a weekend split and their first win of the season, but were unable to net any shots as they fell to Mesabi East 4-0 at Mesabi East High School on Saturday. “We had plenty of opportunities to score, but we missed a couple open shots,” explained Pirates Head Coach Lon Boike.
The Pirates have been able to generate some opportunities each game to score goals, but often times they have not been able to find the back of the net. That was the case again on Saturday with Crookston able to create shots on goal but unable to find the back of the net. Instead, it was Mesabi East grabbing the first goal of the game from Kasey Lamppa. “At times I thought we were a little bit tired from the day before,” said Coach Boike. Crookston’s defense, like it has all season, played strong the rest of the first half to keep the Pirates in the game, trailing 1-0 at halftime.
In the second half, Mesabi East started to open up the lead farther and farther as Crookston’s defense could not hold up, despite Blake Melsa’s 14 saves in goal. Lamppa got the scoring going again to start the half and Mesabi East added two more goals from Sam Troutwine and Gavin Benz to break open a 4-0 lead that held the rest of the way. “I thought we played really hard today and we did a lot of really good things out there,” added Coach Boike. “Overall, I continue to see improvement in all the players and in many different facets of the game.”
Crookston is now 0-12 this season. They will look to get their first win of the season on Tuesday at East Grand Forks. Earlier this season, EGF beat Crookston in a close 1-0 game in Crookston.
The Mesabi East Giants improve to 3-5-2 this season.
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| CROOKSTON | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mesabi East | 1 | 3 | 4 |
Scoring
Mesabi East- Kasey Lamppa
Mesabi East- Kasey Lamppa
Mesabi East- Sam Troutwine
Mesabi East- Gavin Benz
| SAVES | 1st | 2nd | Final |
| Blake Melsa- CROX | 7 | 7 | 14 |
| Ryder Gurelli- Mesabi East | ? | ? | ? |
