Two goals in a span of 3 minutes midway through the second half allowed the Ankeny Centennial boys’ soccer team to rally for a 2-1 victory over Des Moines Lincoln on Tuesday at Cownie Park.
The third-ranked Jaguars overcame a 1-0 halftime deficit to raise their record to 4-0 on the season. No. 13 Lincoln dropped to 1-1.
“We made some adjustments at halftime and challenged some kids to make sure they were better than their opposition,” said Centennial coach Brian Duax. “We created–I don’t know how many chances we created in the second half. It could have easily been like a 7-7 game; there were a lot of chances on both sides.”
Centennial tied the game when Will Overberg scored his fourth goal of the season off an assist by Cole Vincent.
“Cole broke away and had a nice shot to the far post that the keeper deflected, and Will was in the right place at the right time to tap it home,” Duax said.
Just a few minutes later, Michael Brandt scored the go-ahead goal for the Jaguars, his third of the season. Brandt converted off a corner kick by Overberg.
“We were much better in the second half…much more opportunistic,” Duax said. “It was a tale of two halves.”
In the first half, the Railsplitters capitalized on a Centennial mistake to score an own goal.
“I felt we were not the better team in the first half,” Duax said. “We created some chances, but we weren’t as good as we needed to be at keeping the ball. And we scored on ourselves on their goal–an own goal on a corner kick.”
However, the Jaguars then snapped out of their funk in the second half.
“It was a good game,” Duax said. “Lincoln can play, but thankfully our boys bounced back in the second half. We made some tactical adjustments and accepted the challenge to be better than the opposition. We were clearly the better team in the second half.”