St. Norbert Outlasts Beloit
In a game that featured two teams with two different backgrounds, the action did not disappoint. St. Norbert College came in as a (until very recently) nationally ranked team who returned nearly all eleven starts, plus defensive power house Petro Czerniak. Despite losing their initial conference match to the young but scrappy Foresters from Lake Forest, the Green Knights came into Saturday’s contest as favorites.
The Beloit Buccaneers have been a surprise so far in 2009: Beating Rockford, Cornell, Edgewood and Ripon, with its only loss coming at the hands of Concordia (Wisconsin). The surprise isn’t so much that Beloit has been winning games; it’s that they have never been shut out and have been getting majority of scoring from freshmen Jackson Wilkins (brother to Senior All-Conference midfielder Bo Wilkins).
Throughout the game’s first 20 minutes, St. Norbert looked like they had the advantage. Their attacks consisted of multiple short passes, with well timed runs off the ball. Their closest opportunity to score in the first half was a 25 yard volley fired wildly high by Adam Sanchez. Almost immediately following the shot, the tides seemed to turn in favor of Beloit.
Every 50-50 ball, second ball and tackle seemed to bounce Beloit’s way. Forward Jackson Wilkins and Brian Maunze were constantly applying pressure by running at the Green Knight defenders. St. Norbert seemed to crumble under the pressure allowing countless shots towards the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half. However, before the first half wrapped up, Ben Vanden Avond drew a questionable penalty kick in the 39th minute. Vanden Avond stepped up to take the shot, burying it past a diving Nathan Lipps (video will be posted soon).
Beloit continued their surge well into the second half. Right defensive back, Adam Jones, finally drew a yellow card with his second or third spikes up slide tackle in the 59th minute. When the 65th minute came around, Beloit had drawn yet another foul from St. Norbert’s back line from 18 and a half yards out, in the exact center of the field. Bo Wilkins lined up the shot, driving it into the right upper 90 of the goal, tying the game at one a piece.
Beloit and St. Norbert hit a lull for nearly the rest of the match and first overtime period. Within the first three minutes of the second overtime, Vanden Avond came calling yet again. Off a cross from the right corner flag and a failed clear by Beloit’s defenders, Vanden Avond slid in with a defender on his hip driving the ball into the top shelf of the net.
In a match as closely contested as this, it is hard to say either team deserved to lose but in this writer’s opinion, the better team walked away with the win.
St. Norbert 2
Beloit 1