Wildcats Beat Lancers in Soccer Conference Clash Wednesday

Senior Josh Baker headed in a corner kick cross from sophomore Isaac Schlenker in the final three minutes of the game to give the boys' soccer team a 2-1 Midwest Classic Conference North victory over visiting St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy Wednesday afternoon.

“We skated away with a victory,” said USM’s head coach Jason Rienzi. “We should have put the game away in the first half, but we didn’t make the right decisions at the right time until the end. At least we won.”

USM out shot the Lancers 8-4 in the first half but only put one in. It came early.  Sophomore Ben Zwief sent a beautiful pass ahead to Baker. Baker moved the ball to Schlenker who was cutting through three defenders. Schlenker turned a fired a high shot over St. John’s senior goalie Kyle Kreiter into the top left side of the net at 3:39.

USM had several good chances early in the second half. Kreiter made two great saves in the 48th minute to further frustrate the Wildcats. He kick-saved a low blast from the top of the penalty area and seconds later came out to body block a shot from in close.

The Lancers eventually tied the score in the 69th minute. The ball was chipped toward the top of the USM 18-yard box. USM’s sophomore goalkeeper Jack Wells rushed out to stop it, but the ball skipped past him. St. John’s junior Enrique Pariente was coming full tilt. He stepped around Wells, gathered the ball, and blasted it into the vacated net.

The score was tied. As the clocked tick down, it could have been anybody’s game.  But it ended up being USM’s after Baker and Schlenker connected on the corner play at 77:31.

In the game, Wells made five saves and Kreiter made eight saves.

St. John’s is now 2-7 and 1-1 in the conference. USM is 6-1-2 and 2-0 in the conference. The Wildcats next game is Monday when they travel to Beaver Dam to face Wayland Academy in another conference clash.