The Saxony Lutheran Crusaders split a pair of home soccer matches over the week, shutting out Fredericktown 7-0, and dropping a close game to St. Pius X 3-2.
In the win over Fredericktown, five different Crusaders found the back of the net.
Bryce Meyer scored first on an unassisted goal. Colby Smith followed with a goal, assisted by Colton Cissell, who would then score off of a corner kick himself.
St. Vincent’s Liem Nations added two goals, the first a conversion of a penalty kick, and the second assisted by Cissell.
Cissell would then add his second goal of the game, with an assist from Kobe Meyer. Cain Cissell added the seventh goal unassisted.
“Fredericktown, we jumped on them pretty early, kind of dominated the facets of the game that we talk about trying to dominate, and just played really well,” head coach Chris Crawford said. “We moved the ball, defended well, did all the things that we kind of drill every day and train on every day. We finished our opportunities well. I was happy with it. Obviously as a coach, I’m looking for little things to try to fine tune in. So we did that and then Thursday was a drastically different game.”
The Crusaders took the early lead with a Nations goal in the first half against St. Pius X, before the Lancers tied things up shortly before halftime.
St. Pius X took the lead four minutes into the second half and held it for 15 minutes before Saxony’s Cain Cissell tied things up again with 21 minutes remaining in the game.
Possession went back and forth over the next 10 minutes. The Lancers scored the go ahead goal with 12 minutes remaining and held on to secure the win, dealing the Crusaders their second loss of the season.
Crawford said even in the loss he was proud with how his team played against what he said is one of their toughest opponents all year.
“We didn’t come out really great in the first half, the first 20 minutes we just didn’t look ourselves, then it kind of flipped and the rest of the time we really pretty well dominated the game,” Crawford said. “We just couldn’t finish our opportunities. I was okay with the way we played. I actually thought we played very well.Their three goals came from some pretty crazy stuff by them that was a little bit fluky in my opinion. I think if we clean a couple of things up through our midfield we’ll be right where we need to be at the end of the year.”
Crawford was impressed with how his team responded to the loss in practice, he said the tough loss made his team hungrier and ready to bounce back.
“I loved the response of our guys on Friday when we showed up to training,” Crawford said. They got after it, they were ready to work. You could tell that they were upset about the loss, but it didn’t affect the way they trained, they trained maybe even a little bit harder than we had been. As a coach, I love that, you don’t always get that response. Sometimes after a tough game like that, you get them moping around and you have to kind of be a cheerleader just to get them to try to do anything. Our kids are high character kids, and they showed that on Friday.”
The Crusaders have three more home games in September, hosting Notre Dame, Anna-Jonesboro, and Sikeston.
