CROOKSTON GIRLS SOCCER FALLS TO FERGUS FALLS HILLCREST

The Crookston Pirate Girls Soccer team scored their first goal of the season, but it wasn’t enough in a 5-1 loss to Fergus Falls Hillcrest (FFHC) in a Section 8A matchup played at the Crookston High School soccer field in Crookston.

The Pirates had an ominous start to the day when their eighth-grade goalkeeper, Reese Swanson suffered an injury in warm-ups and she wasn’t able to play.
Crookston inserted Cassie Solheim, another eighth-grader into the goal.  “We had Reese went down with an injury about 10 minutes before game time,” said Pirate Coach Sarah Reese. “Cassie was ready and did a great job filling in for us.”
The game was evenly played in the first 15 minutes and at the 18-minute mark, Hillcrest’s Anna Rasmussen got loose and was alone in front of the net and kicked the ball off the Pirate goalie’s fingertips and it went into the net for a 1-0 lead.
Nine minutes later, Crookston answered with their first goal of the season when Madeline Harbott found Makenze Epema with a nice pass and Epema sped by the defenders to the right of the net and kicked the ball to the wide-open left side of the net to tie the game at 1-1 with less than 13 minutes left in the half.  “We earned that nice goal and had a cross ball from Maddie on the outside-mid to Kenze,” said Coach Reese. “Kenze took the ball and got it by the goalie and it was a text-book style goal and a nice play.”
Hillcrest answered with over five minutes left in the half when Kindra Peterson was all alone and found the corner of the net to give Hillcrest a 2-1 lead. Less than three minutes later, Hillcrest added another goal when Alexa Ullrich found the back of the net for a 3-1 lead, which they took into halftime.  One of their goals were scored from 40 yards out and another goal was scored after Cassie had a touch on the ball and the wind took it,” said Coach Reese. “There wasn’t much we could do on those goals, although it showed the girls that we should be taking some shots from 40 yards out.”

The second half was even for the first 15 minutes again with most of the play in the middle third of the field, but Hillcrest’s Peterson scored a goal almost halfway through the second half for a 4-1 lead.  Hillcrest added another goal 10 minutes later when Peterson scored her third goal of the game for a 5-1 lead.  Crookston had a couple of scoring opportunities in the final 20 minutes but didn’t find the back of the net and Hillcrest held on for a 5-1 victory.  “In the second half, a lot of play was in the middle third of the field and we didn’t have a lot of opportunities and they took advantage of their chances,” said Coach Reese. “We are missing two of our seniors with Brinna Egeland and Kylee Meier who both have injuries so that has caused us some problems, but it gives other girls a chance to step up.  It is hard missing two of your leaders, but we are hoping they will be back soon.”
Crookston drops to 0-3 on the year and will travel to St. Johns Prep on Thursday at 3:00 p.m.

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