The Crookston Pirate Boys Soccer team had their home opener spoiled with a 7-0 loss to the Pelican Rapids Vikings in a game played at the Crookston High School Soccer field. Crookston was missing a few players because they were marching with the band at the Minnesota State Fair and combine that with ineligibilities and injuries, the Pirates were shorthanded and it showed in the loss as Pelican Rapids dominated from the start. “I only had 13 players and had to bring two junior varsity players up to give us some warm bodies,” said Pirate Coach Don Cox.
There wasn’t any scoring for the first 30-plus minutes of the game until Pelican Rapids scored with less than five minutes left in the first half for a 1-0 lead. The Vikings added another goal with less than a minute left in the first half for a 2-0 lead going into halftime. Pelican Rapids had nine shots on goal in the first half, while Crookston only had two.
The second half belonged to Pelican Rapids as they score a little over four minutes into the half and added four more goals to cruise to the 7-0 victory. “We got down 3-0 and Pelican Rapids is a talented team and play the game well and we could never recover,” said Coach Cox. “Their quickness was too much for us and our focus got out of focus and my guys got angry when they scored and each time they (Pelican Rapids) scored they got angrier and they started focusing on the wrong things and that hurt us. We couldn’t possess the ball more than two touches and we never got the ball on the first touch on a free ball because they were there first and we were not.”
Crookston drops to 0-2 on the year and will travel to Detroit Lakes on Tuesday, September 4.
| 1st | 2nd | Final | |
| Pelican Rapids | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| CROOKSTON | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Scoring
35:05 – Pelican Rapids – Oscar Diaz
39:06 – Pelican Rapids – Abdifitah Isse
44:15 – Pelican Rapids – Alfredo Centeno
48:00 – Pelican Rapids – Oscar Diaz
55:27 – Pelican Rapids – Alfredo Centeno (Abdinasir Mohamed)
56:01 – Pelican Rapids – Mohamed Isse (Khadar Ibrihim)
61:34 – Pelican Rapids – Sebastian Rosiles (Jesus Moreno)
| Saves | 1st | 2nd | Total |
| Axel Zavala – Pelican Rapids | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Ben Andringa – Crookston | 7 | 3 | 10 |
