Vikes end week with losses

By Becky Walz,

Thursday, May 11, 2023 9:30 am

With games just days apart, the Decorah girls soccer team (3-8) was at Union Thursday, then competed in the Waverly-Shell Rock tournament Saturday.

Tough loss
It was a tough day for the Decorah Thursday as the Vikes fell to Union (4-8) on the road, by penalty kicks, 6-4.
Nearly 10 minutes into the first half, Decorah scored the first goal of the game when Kylie O’Hara pressured the Union goalkeeper into a mistake. The ball came right to O’Hara’s feet, allowing the Viking to score from about 10 yards away. The Vikes second goal came about nearly 15 minutes into the second half on a nice assist from Ella Grouws, with Nora Lesmeister finishing.
“Decorah was playing reasonably well, but with less than ten minutes to go, the wheels fell off.  There is a saying in soccer that the most dangerous lead is 2-0. The team in the lead may tend to let up little. If the opposition scores, it gives them new life. That’s exactly what happened. I still thought we could close out the game, but with less than five minutes to go, Union scored again to equalize,” said Coach Loren Hendrickson.
After two scoreless OT periods where Decorah had the better chances to score, the game was decided by PKs.  Union scored 4 to Decorah’s 2.
“This was a tale of snatching defeat from victory. This was a reminder that the game is 80 minutes long and our team needs to play good soccer for all 80, no matter the score,” concluded Coach Hendrickson.

W-SR tourney
It was another rough day for the Viking girls soccer team Saturday as they competed in a tournament at Waverly-Shell Rock, losing to Iowa City Regina (9-4), 2-0 and Bondurant-Farrar (7-5), 4-0.
“In the IC Regina game, I thought we played pretty well, but Regina finished their chances and we didn’t. It seems we come to a certain place in the offensive third of the field and run out of ideas. We’ve been working on this, but it is not reflected in our game play,” said Coach Hendrickson. “The Bondurant-Farrar game was different. They are a very well-trained, experienced team from the suburbs of Des Moines and their quality is unmistakable. They pretty much controlled the game from the start. I believe they are ranked highly in the state and deservedly so. Our girls tried their best, but our best doesn’t quite match their best at this time.

This week
Monday, the Vikes hosted North Fayette Valley and finish the regular season at home Friday, May 12, with West Delaware at 5 p.m.

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