Laurence Hilliard
The Kosciusko boys soccer team had several key players back after the end of the football season for a 6-3 victory over Caledonia. Jon Gant, one of those football players, led by Whippets with four goals. Braylon Truss and Alexis Hernandez each had a goal.
Kosciusko lost two games before the return of the football players, 2-1 against New Hope and 1-0 against Morton.
“I couldn't say enough about the guys who filled in for them. They did a really good job,” said coach Greg Cooper. “But getting all those guys back kind of set the tone.”
In a second game last week, the Whippets were defeated by Richland 3-0. “They (Richland) did a really good job dropping back.” Cooper said. “It almost seemed like they had nine guys back on defense. And they would overload on the right or the left and we couldn’t get through it.”
Girls
The Lady Whippets were defeated by Caledonia 7-0 and Richland 3-1.
The Caledonia game started well, scoreless through the first 20 minutes. “Then they got one goal and one led to two and we couldn’t get anything moving offensively,” Cooper said. “Before we knew it it was 4-0 at the half. We tried to make some adjustments at the half to slow them down, but we weren’t able to.”
Kosciusko was much improved against Richland. “We changed the way we approached practicing after the Caledonia game. They really did respond well.”
The Lady Whippets cut a 2-0 halftime deficit to 2-1 on a goal by Molly Steed early in the second half. But Kosciusko picked up a red card and had to finish the game one player down and Richland added a late goal.
“They worked their tails off trying to keep it at 2-1 and were pressing and had opportunities for goals, but just weren’t able to put it away.”
The Whippets and Lady Whippets played Columbus Tuesday and have home games with Forest Friday.
