The Corvallis Blue Devils battled the undefeated Stevensville boys’ soccer team to a tie in their final regular season game on Thursday. Stevensville had already secured the top seed in the division. Corvallis faced Hamilton on Tuesday, October 15th, in a play in game. Those results were not in at press time.
Corvallis scored first, at the 19-minute mark when Blake Molesh took a DJ Pekoc assist in to the side of the net. Corvallis kept the pressure on the Stevensville team but the Yellowjackets flexed their muscles and worked the ball around to Daniel Pendergast who shot the ball to Joseph Daniels on the left side of the pitch. At 21 minutes, Daniels took the ball in and shot it past the keeper for a Yellowjacket goal to tie the game.
Stevensville finished the season with a record of 7-0-1 in conference play and 11-0-1 overall. They will meet the No. 2 team from the north, Libby, on Saturday in Stevensville. If they continue winning in the playoffs, they will have the home field advantage.
Hamilton secured a chance to go to the playoffs by winning two matches last week. The team began the week in last place and with a win over Frenchtown last Tuesday and then over Loyola on Thursday, the team leapfrogged their way into the playoffs according to coach Randy Lint.
“Our destiny was in our own hands,” said Lint. “The kids played the best game of the season in Frenchtown, it was non stop. It’s been an epic Montana fall soccer season.”
Loyola scored first in the final regular season match. The young Hamilton team battled but didn’t score the tying goal at the 56-minute mark when David Feldman took an Aldo Rodriguez pass in for the score. Feldman then scored an unassisted goal at 70 minutes to put Hamilton up for the win. Each team took eight shots on goal Casey Ryter had one save for Hamilton.
“We had to win to advance, a tie would have put Loyola through,” according to Lint. “David Feldman, a junior, grabbed the game by the scruff and pulled us through. We’re pretty excited to get a taste of that playoff atmosphere.”
The Hamilton girls’ soccer team won the conference championship and will host Columbia Falls on Saturday. They defeated Loyola, 9-2, in the final game of the season. Sami Kratofil had three goals. Bri Huggans added two more. Karissa Pfantz, Brianna Abrahamsen, Kara Weese, and Brie Clifford each had one goal.
Stevensville and Corvallis battled to a 1-1 tie which Corvallis the right to advance to a play in game against Frenchtown. That game was Tuesday. (Results were not available at press time.)
Stevensville’s Carli Sebastian scored an unassisted goal at 25 minutes. Three minutes after the half, Corvallis’ Katelyn Frost took a pass from Katie Landis and booted in the last goal of the match. Stevensville took only four shots on goal while Corvallis had 14 shots. Stevi’s Evie Tiplady had 11 saves and Kira Doyle, substituting for the injured Roxy Rademacher, had four saves.
“I think that we controlled it,” said Corvallis coach Allison Neils-LeMaine. “We just couldn’t get it in the back of the net. We were shooting it high and shooting it wide. It was nice to finally get the one in and then keep the pressure on.”
She went on to say that Annie Sangster’s defense was outstanding and that she denied a lot of shots. Those shots that got past Sangster, relief keeper Doyle did an outstanding job of controlling some “really scary shots.”