St. Charles East ties Geneva with late PK

A controversial call resulted in a late penalty kick for St. Charles East during Tuesday's Upstate Eight Conference game against Geneva at St. Charles North.

Jordan Moore was able to convert it with 14:32 remaining in the second half and the Saints escaped with a 2-2 tie.

"From my angle I couldn't see, but talking to some other people from that end, they thought it was a pretty harsh penalty," Vikings coach Ryan Estabrook said. "But that's the game of soccer, you leave the result. While we might not agree with the call, it was the call that was made and we're not going to complain about it."

St. Charles East (13-2-1, 4-1-1) had to battle back all evening as it never enjoyed a lead.

"I thought it was a subpar performance for us," Saints coach Paul Jennison said. "Even though I thought we had 90 percent of the possessions, we never really got that big break that we needed and they got their two shots on goal."

Geneva (6-4-4, 2-3-2) jumped ahead not even 10 minutes into play when Matthew Waldoch was able to slip past St. Charles East's final line of defense and go one-on-one with Saints goalkeeper Steven Owens. His flick just inside the opposite post gave the Vikings a 1-0 advantage.

The Saints got back when Zach Manibog found an opening right in front of the goal and rolled it in with 3:03 remaining before halftime to make it 1-1.

Manibog had missed the Saints' prior two games with a hamstring injury.

"Zach's a quality player and one of the many we've got," Jennison said. "The guys have stepped up a lot the last few weeks and we're just hoping the pieces come together at the right time."

The Vikings stunned the Saints a few minutes into the second half when Jason Lagger sent in a beautiful corner kick to Drew Klaus whose header found the back of the net.

"That was a brand-new play that we just worked on in practice," Lagger said. "We tried it on the first corner, and those corners are weird because they go down and they divot. I just ran it to Klaus because he's 6-foot-4 and just towers over everyone and he put it in."

The Saints couldn't net the equalizer in the run of play, although they created several solid opportunities the rest of the way.

But they were able to get the penalty kick and avoid the upset loss.

"I thought we played very hard and created some nice chances, but we just didn't come out with the win," Manibog said. "At least we didn't lose the game."