The Ankeny Centennial boys’ soccer team will take a 3-0 record into Friday’s game at Norwalk.
The Jaguars won all three of their games at the blustery Iowa City West Invitational last weekend, beginning with a 1-0 shootout victory over defending Class 3A state champion Iowa City West on Friday.
“Overall, it was a good learning weekend with good results,” said first-year Centennial coach Brian Duax. “We will build on the foundation we are laying and try and get better every single day.”
The game against Iowa City West went to a shootout after both teams failed to score during regulation. Centennial then won the shootout by a 4-1 margin, getting goals from Will Overberg, Cole Vincent, Nick Ashton and Michael Brandt while Cole Pankey made a save for the Jaguars.
“It was a great game in between the boxes,” Duax said. “We were for sure the better side, but we just didn’t finish our chances.”
On Saturday, Centennial got a pair of goals from Alex Keninger in a 4-3 victory over Cedar Rapids Washington. Overberg had a goal and an assist, while Vincent added another goal.
The game was played under extremely windy conditions, with the wind blowing straight at one of the goals.
“Washington was a really, really dangerous team. I would say they were the better team all over the field except the boxes,” Duax said. “We had two separate two-goal leads, and we should have made sure to see the game out but we made some mistakes to allow them back into the game. We will learn from those mistakes and grow from them. But unlike the Iowa City West game, we were very, very good in the attacking box.”
The Jaguars then closed out the tournament with a 3-0 victory over Linn-Mar (Marion). Overberg had a goal and an assist, while Brandt and Michael Poitry each added a goal.
“It was apparent that we were running out of gas,” Duax said. “Playing three games in roughly 20 hours is extremely difficult. We had to change our style again because of fatigue, but we were in complete control of this game from opening whistle to final whistle.”