With a gap in the conference schedule, last week’s Clintonville soccer matches switched to the teams from Antigo and Shawano.
On Tuesday, the Truckers traveled north and played Antigo for the second time this season. Playing in front of their home crowd, Antigo was a much different team than the one Clintonville saw at the recent Gresham tournament.
The Truckers scored their first goal of the contest at the 22 minute mark when Juan Santiago took a corner kick from Paul Kenfield, and headed it into the net. Clintonville maintained steady pressure on the Antigo defense, but the Red Robins goalie kept the Truckers in check, and the half ended 1-0.
The second half was much the same as the first. The Clintonville defense didn’t allow many scoring opportunities, while the offense controlled the ball. With 20 minutes left in the contest, junior forward Kenfield beat the Antigo goalie, and pushed the score to 2-0. The Truckers final score came on a shot from junior midfielder Blake Hauser, who beat the keeper to the short side.
Steady play by Clintonville goalie Bob McCoy maintained the Truckers 3-0 lead through the balance of the game.
Last Friday evening, Clintonville traveled to Shawano, to take on the Hawks. Both team scored goals in the first period, with Clintonville’s tally coming from sophomore Damon Lorge. The Clintonville squad displayed some their growing confidence against the senior-laden Hawks, and moved the ball crisply up the field during the first period. Unfortunately, the momentum switched back to Shawano after the half, and the Hawks scored two quick goals pushing the score to 3-1.
Clintonville tried to play catch-up during the rest of the period, and just couldn’t get past the Shawano defense. The final score of 5-1 was not indicative of the Truckers’ improved play.
“With the season now more than half over, we seem to be making the progress we’d hoped to see earlier,” said Coach Roger Lupien. “Our effort in the first half against a physically superior Shawano team was our best over-all play of the year. We schedule these larger schools to get a true measure of our improvement; and tonight’s game clearly demonstrated that the players’ hard work is beginning to pay off.”