Recreation soccer comes to close
The final week of Presque Isle Recreation and Parks Department fifth- and sixth-grade soccer featured great post-season play.
In the first of two quarter-final games, the No. 4 Express hosted the No. 5 Crew. The lower-ranked Crew team came to play, pouring it on quickly. Crew’s Caleb Wheaton posted a hat trick in the game and added a pair of assists to push his team over the top. Also torching the nets, teammate Riley Kinney had two goals and two assists, while Paige McHatten added to the goal total with one of her own. Express’s Tanner Smith didn’t want to go home without a fight when he posted two second-half goals but only to fall short of the dominating six-goal performance by Crew. Goalkeeper Mark Graves put the Crew on his back defensively allowing two goals on 14 shots. The Crew advanced to the semi-final game vs. top-ranked Clash with the 6-2 victory.
In the second game of the quarter-final round, the No. 3 Sting matched up with No. 6 Mutiny. The first half was a defensive battle with both goalies posting shutouts for their respected teams. The second half played out to be a different story. Sting striker Jacob Bonville broke the ice early in the second half with a great goal following a tremendous throw-in from teammate Rebecca Gallagher, which was headed to an open space from Connor DeMerchant and Bonville finished it off. With time expiring DeMerchant slammed the door on Mutiny with a goal of his own and the Sting moved on to meet the No. 2 Rapids by prevailing, 2-0.
In the first semi-final game, the No. 1 Clash met up with the rolling No. 5 Crew. Clash showed why it was the top seed when Torey Levesque posted a hat trick in a lose-or-go-home scenario. Teammate Alex Harvath showed his team play adding a goal and two assists, only to be helped out by defensive specialist Sydney Durepo, who served up two assists, both on corner kicks. Closing the door late in the second half was defensemen Owen McQuarrie with his first goal of the season. Clash goalkeeper Brandon McKnight was a key player throughout the regular season and kept it going in the post season by posting a shutout as his team moved on with a 6-0 victory.
The final semi-final proved to be the best game of the season. The game was deadlocked through the first half with the Sting peppering the Rapid’s goalie Austin Plourde, who stopped all the shots he faced in the first half. In the second half, Sting was awarded a corner kick when team captain Chase Quirion placed the ball onto DeMerchant’s rocket-launching foot for the game’s first goal. The name of the game ended up being a corner-kicking frenzy when Rapids’ Colby Buckley took one of his own serving it up to teammate Ricky Goupille who made the league’s only head ball goal of the season to notch the game at 1-1. The game was battled out to the end finishing 1-1 at the end of regulation.
At the start of overtime, both teams fought hard defending their goals through the first overtime. In double OT, Sting had turned on the shots again, but only to be stopped by the league’s best goal keeper, Austin Plourde. In the last of all overtimes, penalty kick were laid out to decide the fully-intense game. During the PK overtime, nine of 10 shots were saved with Rapids’ Buckley earning his team the win with the only goal scored. The Rapids carried on their winning streak to the championship.
In the final game of the 2012 fall season, the No. 1 Clash and the No. 2 Rapid went head-to-head. The got off to a quick start when a foul was called just inside mid-field on the Rapid defense. Clash’s right-wingman Levesque set the ball and tapped it to Durepo, who buried the ball in the back of the net.
The game stayed close for a few minutes after until left wing Harvath crossed the ball and Levesque ran on to the ball to finish it and put his Clash up 2-0. The half ended in a 2-0 lead for Clash. In the second half, the Rapids pulled Plourde out of goal to attempt to get his team back in the contest. It proved to be a good move as Plourde torched the net and brought his Rapids within a goal. At this point the Clash defense knew what needed to be done and pulled together to hold off the charging Rapid team. The Clash won the championship 2-1.
