St. Charles North, Geneva settle for a tie
There was no celebrating at St. Charles North on Tuesday.
The host North Stars and Geneva battled to a scoreless draw in an Upstate Eight Conference River Division soccer match.
“It’s Geneva-North so we’ve got some pretty serious history together so it’s going to be a hard-fought game,” St. Charles North coach Eric Willson said. “I don’t necessarily think we played our best first half. I think our combination play was off trying to force some things, but all in all it’s a credit to them. I think they played a good defensive game for sure.”
Geneva’s Kevin Higgins drew the task of trying to keep the ball away form the dangerous Tyler Davis who entered the contest with 14 goals in just 10 matches.
“I thought (Higgins) had a fantastic game and did a really nice job of keeping in front of him,” Willson said. “I think their defense did a real nice job of not letting him get behind them and doubled when they needed to and (Higgins) had a really good game against him.”
Perhaps Davis’ best opportunity came with 19 minutes remaining. He got the ball ahead of the pack and only had to beat Geneva keeper Steven Soderstrom, but his shot was snatched by a diving Soderstrom before it could find the net.
It was one of several key saves made by Soderstrom, especially in the second half, to keep the match scoreless.
“Steven Soderstrom came up huge on at least two occasions in that second half,” Geneva coach Ryan Estabrook said. “We expect him to make plays like that. He’s our only four-year varsity player and some might saw we got lucky on those situations, but I know Steven makes those kinds of plays.”
After getting blasted 5-2 last season and 3-1 in 2009 by Geneva, the North Stars were looking for better results against the Vikings. While the draw was certainly a better outcome, it didn’t leave the players satisfied.
“No, were not happy at all,” North Stars senior midfielder Alex Behm said. “Last year we screwed up completely and now we need to win these games. These are big games we need for conference and the Tri-Cities rivalry. They’ve beaten us the last few years so we really needed to win.”
St. Charles North is now 8-3-2 overall and 0-1-2 in conference play while Geneva is 8-5-5 and 1-1-1.