The Crookston Pirate Boy’s Soccer team suffered a couple of defensive lapses halfway through the first half leading to five goals as East Grand Forks scored a season-high eight goal in an 8-2 win over Crookston in a Section 8A game played on the Crookston High School Soccer Field.
Both teams played even through the opening twenty minutes of the match before Crookston’s backline unraveled allowing East Grand Forks’ forwards to chase after crosses and searching passes and open up the scoring. “For the first twenty minutes, I thought we played really well,” said Crookston head coach Lon Boike. “Then they got two or three goals really quick in a short amount of time. We had some breakdowns defensively on the backline.” In the 22nd minute, Hudeifa Mohamed sent a cross into the back from the far side of the field that AbdiMalik Abdi headed past Crookston goalkeeper Kaleb Thingelstad giving the Green Wave a 1-0 lead. AbdiMalik Abdi dribbled through the Crookston defense before he was tripped in the 18-yard box earning a penalty kick with a chance to double his scoring account on the day. 26:54 into the match, AbdiMalik Abdi confidently struck his shot inside the left post from the spot doubling the visitor’s advantage. Just seven seconds later, Tommy Ellis launched a searching ball towards the top of the 18-yard box that Hudeifa Mohamed tracked down before depositing the ball into the net giving East Grand Forks a 3-0 lead. In the 32nd minute, AbdiMalik Abdi closed out his hat trick off a cross from AbdiNajib Abdi giving the Green Wave a 4-0 lead. East Grand Forks earned another penalty kick 33:38 into the match which Kole Chupka converted giving the Green Wave a 5-0 halftime lead. “We didn’t really mark up very well,” noted Boike. “They’re a good team, and we just didn’t do as good of a job as we can on marking up guys. We just have to work on that and get better at it.”
Crookston showed some life to open the second half when Noal Kiel converted a chip shot over the East Grand Forks goalkeeper cutting the Pirates’ deficit down to 5-1. “Noah Kiel, hit a nice shot from the side of the goal,” explained Boike. “He had pulled himself out and was trying to make a play and stuck it in there and that was a very nice play.” Guled Hashi took that goal back for the Green Wave with a strike past Crookston’s goalkeeper Kaleb Thingelstad giving East Grand Forks a 6-1 lead. Guled Hashi added a second goal when Abdullah Alshalan sent a deflection to Hashi who sped past Crookston’s back line and scored inside the far post giving the Green Wave a 7-1 lead. Less than one minute later, the Pirates took one goal back after Ben Brantner converted a penalty kick into the left side of the net bringing Crookston within 7-2. “On Ben Brantner’s (penalty kick), I thought that was an excellent shot,” added Boike East Grand Forks added one last goal before the final whistle when Yahya Ismail scored the visitor’s eighth goal of the day to close out the Green Wave’s 8-2 win. “I thought we were playing well early in the match,” summarized Boike. “We kind of need lower scoring matches for us because we don’t put a lot of balls in the goal. We looked good and had a couple of opportunities early on some breakaways we didn’t quite convert on, and then they had that bundle of goals, and we got down 5-0 at halftime. In the second half, we kind of played them even, but it was just too little too late at that point.”
Crookston falls to 0-9. The Pirates return to the pitch on Friday when Crookston travels to Grand Forks to take on Grand Forks Red River at 4:30 P.M. East Grand Forks improves to 3-4-1.
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| East Grand Forks | 5 | 3 | 8 |
| CROOKSTON | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Scoring
21:00 – EGF – AbdiMalik Abdi (Hudeifa Mohamed)
26:54 – EGF – AbdiMalik Abdi (PK)
27:01 – EGF – Hudeifa Mohamed (Tommy Ellis)
31:33 – EGF – AbdiMalik Abdi (AbdiNajib Abdi)
33:38 – EGF – Kole Chupka (PK)
48:07 – CROX – Noah Kiel
53:23 – EGF – Guled Hashi
55:07 – EGF – Guled Hashi (Abdullah Alshalan)
56:00 – CROX – Ben Brantner (PK)
67:05 – EGF – Yashya Ismail
| Saves | 1st | 2nd | Total |
| Drew Kallock – EGF | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| Kaleb Thingelstad – CROX | 6 | 3 | 9 |
