On a rainy night, the Iowa Falls-Alden girls established control from start to track down sixth win and the Wright County boys netted the tiebreaker in the second half to earn a road victory. The Cadet girls won 6-0 and the Wright County boys held on 1-0 on Thursday, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ.
In the girls match, the Cadets controlled time of possession in the first half and marched to a 3-0 advantage at the half, behind goals by Grace Hartford, Kyli Koenigsfeld and Natasha Martinez-Garcia. The Cadets also denied Wright County from attempting a shot on goal in the first half. In the second half, the Cadets pulled away with Hartford’s second goal and a pair of goals by Kymri Koenigsfeld.
IFA Head Coach Morgan Vierkandt on the Cadets ability to box opponents into playing a lot of defense.
“Right now we’ve got a real strong midfield. We’ve got Olivia Brogdon and Karen Lozano, two seniors that are just holding it down. Olivia is more of like the bruiser, she runs in and steals the ball. Karen is very much the heartbeat, kind of the maestro of the midfield. Everybody knows they can pass the ball to her, she is patient with the ball and finds a pass out,” says Vierkandt. “One thing I emphasize in practice, soccer can be a very tiring sport if you’re chasing the ball around all the time. Let’s be the team that’s passing the ball around so we don’t have to go and chase it. It’s something I harp on the forwards all the time. If you want to go and dribble that’s fine but if you lose it that means we have to sprint 60 yards the other way and go win it back. Keep the ball, keep possession, tire the other team out and then make good plays going forward.”
This was the Cadets fifth shutout win of the season.
In the boys match, each team had multiple near misses on shots on goal throughout a scoreless first half. Midway through the second half, on a corner kick Wright County’s William Ordonez from just outside the right post, stopped and popped the go ahead goal with 24:30 left. Wright County Goalkeeper Jose Alfaro also completed his second shutout of the season.
Wright County Senior Jose Alfaro on keeping the Cadets of the board and the team around him.
“I love having clean sheets, clean sheets are what gives my percentage a good look and everything. I couldn’t have that 100 % without our defense. It’s all about just communicating, passing and talking, it’s just everything in there,” says Alfaro. “It feels very great. I just want to thank my teammates and I want to thank my coach for everything that he has done for us in our program. Every time I’m thinking we’re going to win, that’s my mentality in everything we do. I want to keep winning.”
The Wright County boys (2-5-2) and the girls (0-5-3) will have separate matches against Garner-Hayfield-Ventura on Monday. The Cadet boys (0-6-1) will be at Nevada on Friday. The Iowa Falls-Alden girls (6-1) will host Hampton-Dumont-CAL on Monday.
