The Crookston Pirate Boy’s Soccer team showed improvement but failed to score in their final game of the regular season falling 3-0 against East Grand Forks in a Section 8A match played in East Grand Forks.
East Grand Forks scored the matches opening goal thanks to some help from the turf. AbdiMalik Abdi sent a pass to Nate Afshari, whose shot took a hard bounce over Crookston goalkeeper Kaleb Thingelstad into the back of the net giving the Green Wave a 1-0 lead. “It was just kind of a fluke goal,” explained Crookston head coach Lon Boike. “Their kid made a shot from quite a ways out. It looked like a pretty routine save for Kaleb and then unbelievably so, it took a bad hop on the artificial turf. Kaleb took that bad hop, and it was a quick hop, so he didn’t have that much time to react. The ball moved, and it went into the goal. He got a hand on it, but he wasn’t able to make the save.” East Grand Forks added a second goal before halftime with Nick Oberg scoring with 3:16 to play before halftime giving the hosts a 2-0 advantage. “The second goal just was a lack of marking up,” noted Boike. “The kid made a nice play on it, but we didn’t mark up very well. He made a nice shot and beat our defender on that one.”
In the second half, East Side put the match away with a goal 55:41 into the game from Kole Chupka giving the Green Wave a 3-0 lead. “At that point (falling behind 3-0) it just got a little tough,” added Boike. “When we got down 3-0, we just kept playing hard the rest of the game, and we were able to kind of play everybody towards the end of the match. Playing under the lights, on the turf was a good experience for some of these kids.” Drew Kallock made 12 saves in net for East Grand Forks to preserve his shutout and secure the Green Wave’s 3-0 win. Although Crookston was unable to extend their winning streak heading into the postseason, Boike was pleased with the progress tonight’s result showed, “I like what we did this year in terms of showing improvement. I think it’s shown in the last three weeks. I like what we’ve done. I feel ok going into the playoffs with how much we’ve improved. We lost 8-2 to these guys last time at our place, so to go to their place and lose 3-0, knowing what happened on two of those goals…we might get another shot at them in the playoffs, and that would be great if we did.”
Crookston ends the regular season at 2-12. The Pirates return to the pitch on Tuesday, October 7 when Crookston begins the Section 8A tournament against an opponent to be determined. East Grand Forks improves to 5-5-1.
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| Crookston | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| East Grand Forks | 2 | 1 | 3 |
Scoring
18:57 – EGF – Nate Afshari (AbdiMalik Abdi)
36:44 – EGF – Nick Oberg
55:41 – EGF – Kole Chupka
| Saves | 1 | 2 | Total |
| Kaleb Thingelstad – Crox | 6 | 7 | 13 |
| Drew Kallock – EGF | 6 | 6 | 12 |
