The Crookston Pirate Boys Soccer team picked up their first win of the season, using three first-half goals by Caden Boike to defeat the Melrose Dutchmen 4-1 in a match at the Crookston High School Soccer Fields. Boike, who has four goals on the season now, was the Pirate goalkeeper until the middle of last season and moved to striker and it has worked out for the Pirates in a number of ways. “Caden was a goalkeeper the last couple years and towards the end of last year we moved Blake Melsa into goal and moved Caden to striker because of his speed and ball handling ability,” said his coach and dad, Lon Boike. “That is working out really well for us this year as he has four goals in three games so far and Blake is playing really well.”
Crookston controlled the first half of play including the three goals from Boike. “We did pretty much dominate the first half and had a strong wind behind us which really helped as well. We took advantage of several of their miss cues and put a lot of pressure on them to force some turnovers,” said Coach Boike.
The second half was much like the first although the scoring slowed as both defenses picked it up, “Our defense has been playing really well this year in three of the four matches. Thor Harbott has been playing extremely well on defense and has been playing some offense as well. Also Nathan Kelly has been doing an outstanding job on defense. Our defense is much improved over last year and we have a number of guys that have done a great job back there shutting things down.” Harbott scored his first goal of the season unassisted as the front line players continued to play well, “Our front with midfielders Carter Trudeau, Brannon Tangquist and Jack Everett we have a number of players that we have been running in and out of the lineup and they’ve all been doing a great job and we have pretty good speed up front,” said Coach Boike.
Crookston is now 1-3 on the season and will be at home next week with two games, Detroit Lakes on Tuesday and Fergus Falls Hillcrest on Thursday. Melrose falls to 0-3 on the year and will host St. Cloud Cathedral on Tuesday.
JV – Crookston also won 4-1
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| Melrose | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| CROOKSTON | 3 | 1 | 4 |
Scoring
12:00 – Crookston – Caden Boike (Gavin Winger)
29:25 – Crookston – Caden Boike (Jack Everett)
35:48 – Crookston – Caden Boike
44:00 – Crookston – Thor Harbott
59:00 – Melrose – Brandon Sanchez
| SAVES | 1 | 2 | Final |
| Blake Melsa- Crox | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Adan Ambriz – Mel |
5 | 3 | 8 |
