Fergus Falls Hillcrest Shuts Out Pirate Girls Soccer

The Crookston Pirates Girls’ Soccer team fell 6-0 on a rain-soaked field against the Fergus Falls Hillcrest Comets in a Section 8A match played at the Crookston High School Soccer Field.
The rain was the true winner of the match with the field reflecting precipitation that began falling hours before the opening kick-off and didn’t stop once the match concluded. The soggy field conditions didn’t slow Fergus Falls Hillcrest early in the match when Mackenzie Foss scored giving the Comets a 1-0 lead. Crookston strung together several strong minutes of play before the visitor’s scored their second goal with Foss once again striking the ball into the net growing the Fergus Falls Hillcrest lead to 2-0. Two minutes later, the Comets added a third goal scored by Kindra Peterson. Fergus Falls Hillcrest added their fourth goal in the 26th minute when Rakel Amland shot past Crookston’s Kylee Meier for the Comets’ fourth goal. Just before halftime, Anna Mayers added Fergus Fall Hillcrest added a fifth goal in the 39th minute giving the visitor’s a 5-0 lead. “In the first half we had several different five to ten-minute stretches where we played well,” said Crookston Head Coach Sarah Reese. “We had other stretches where we just mentally and physically were not paying attention to time, space, ball pressure and all the other little details. We need to do give-and-goes and I saw one or two the whole game and we spent almost the entire practice yesterday working on keeping the ball at our feet, give-and-goes, ball pressure, all of the things we reiterated yesterday and very few people showed that to carry it over in the game. If we don’t do the little things all of the scores are going to be like that and we have to decide that we want to come and be competitive because we certainly have the skill set and the people, they just make it difficult when they don’t do the little things to help each other out.”
Both coaches and the officials agreed to play a twenty-minute second half due to the field conditions and the Comets managed to add one final goal in the 45th minute as Mackenzie Foss completed her hat trick with her third goal to secure the 6-0 win for Fergus Falls Hillcrest. “I think that we played better in the second half,” noted Reese. “I still think that we weren’t being very mentally tough. I think there are several opportunities we could’ve had, but we did little things like lifting our foot on throw-ins. We had three turnovers in a row in the second half and that’s not really appropriate at this point in the season. Instead of playing smart we’re making silly mistakes that are allowing them to get in our space.” Reese did note that the weather impacted the match, but did so for both teams, “everybody is playing in the same weather, so we have to come ready to play whether its 90 (degrees) or 50 (degrees) and raining. We have to come prepared to play regardless of the weather situation. We had several opportunities where we were in our last third and there was no sense of urgency and the couple times we had a little sense of urgency, it quickly turned to panic. We have to just calm down and play our game.”
The Pirates fall to 0-10-1 this season and return to the field on Friday, September 28 when Crookston travels to Hibbing to take on Hibbing at 3 p.m. Fergus Falls Hillcrest improves to 5-5. 

Dillynn Wallace kicks the ball    Clara Meyer looks to get the ball past an opponent

Mackenze Epema controls the ball in the rain

Scoring
4:00 – Hillcrest – Mackenzie Foss
19:00 – Hillcrest – Mackenzie Foss
21:00 – Hillcrest – Kindra Peterson
26:00 – Hillcrest – Rakel Amland
39:00 – Hillcrest – Anna Mayers
45:00 – Hillcrest – Mackenzie Foss