Pirate Girls Soccer Shut Out by Fergus Falls

The Crookston Pirates Girls’ Soccer team opened their season with a 6-0 loss to Fergus Falls Hillcrest Academy in a Section 8A game played in Fergus Falls.
Both teams battled through a scoreless opening twenty minutes with neither side able to separate early on in each squad’s 2018 debut. “In the first twenty minutes of the game we definitely had the ball in their defensive third most of the time,” explained Pirates head coach Sarah Reese. “We were working the ball through the middle and having some good passing opportunities, but after that point, they took control of the game and that’s when the scoring started.” In the 24th minute, Mackenzie Foss found the back of the net with a strike to give the Comets a 1-0 lead. Foss wasted little time scoring her second goal just two minutes later giving the hosts a 2-0 lead at halftime. “We have a variety of players playing in new positions or who are new to the game of soccer so we did some adjusting on the fly to try some different pieces to puzzle and try and get things to gel and we played really well defensively, they just had some really great shots where there was nothing we could really do about them,” explained Reese. In the Second half, Mackenzie Foss finished off her hat trick with a goal in the 44thminute giving Fergus Falls Hillcrest a 3-0 lead. Both teams would go without scoring for the next 26 minutes before Kindra Peterson broke through for the Comets’ fourth goal in the 70th minute. Peterson added a second goal seven minutes later to make it 5-0 before Ketty Akselsen closed out the contest in the final minute with one last goal to secure the Fergus Falls Hillcrest 6-0 win. “We didn’t transition well out of the defensive zone,” added Reese. “We had a lot of turnovers in the middle that resulted in them playing off those opportunities. When we didn’t transition out of defense we weren’t able to create scoring opportunities for ourselves.”
Despite the disappointing final scoreline, head coach Sarah Reese did take away a few components that the Pirates will look to build upon going forward, “Reese Swanson was playing in her first varsity game and having said that, she’s probably the top player today. She made her presence known and you would have never known she was a seventh grader. I was very impressed with her play, she was very aggressive, moved her feet well, had good field position, and everything I asked her to do she did every time. I was highly impressed with her play today. I think we have to build confidence. A few people got stuck on dwelling on the previous five minutes rather than the next five minutes and the rest of the game so I think we just need to be mentally prepared. We have a young team and when you have a young team that something that very frequently can happen, so we do need to work on managing our emotions in the moment and finding the grit to play through the game.”
The Pirates fall to 0-1 this season and return to the pitch on Thursday when Crookston hosts St. John’s Prep at 3 p.m. Fergus Falls Hillcrest improves to 1-0.

The Fergus Falls Hillcrest and Crookston Pirate Girls Soccer teams get together for a quick prayer (Picture by Dave Emanuel)

Brinna Egeland puts the ball in play  Elise Erdmann kicks the ball (Pictures by Dave Emanuel)

Scoring
24:00 – FFHC – Mackenzie Foss
26:00 – FFHC – Mackenzie Foss
44:00 – FFHC – Mackenzie Foss
70:00 – FFHC – Kindra Peterson
77:00 – FFHC – Kindra Peterson
79:00 – FFHC –  Ketty Akselsen