Brian Duax didn’t mince any words after his Ankeny Centennial boys’ soccer team fell to visiting Waukee Northwest, 3-1, in the CIML Conference opener for both squads on Tuesday.
“We were awful. Uninspired. Unprepared,” said the Jaguars’ longtime coach. “But I put the onus on myself. We had a game plan, and I thought it was working. But they punched us in the mouth and made us face adversity, and we didn’t respond to it as well as we did last weekend.”
The Wolves (2-0) built a 2-0 halftime lead before Centennial (1-2) got a penalty kick from Tate Duax about 3 minutes into the second half. He has scored four of the team’s six goals this season.
Northwest later added an insurance goal. Ayden Gabrielson, Landen Steffy and Chris Weihe each found the net for the Wolves.
“Kudos to them on the first goal. It was a fantastic goal,” Duax said. “The second goal was a little bit of a scrum in the box. You’ve got to have a little bit of attitude and some grit to get that ball out, but we didn’t. It was a shot through traffic and I’m not sure if our keeper (Will Kreuger) saw it at all until it was too late.”
Duax said the Wolves played a different style than they have in the past under coach Carlos Acebey.
“He wanted to get forward and create numbers situations up top, and they did it really well,” Duax said. “They’ll be threatening, and arguably one of their best players isn’t even playing yet. So kudos to them.”
The Jaguars, meanwhile, played like they weren’t having fun–according to Duax.
“It seemed like they were just going through the motions,” he said. “And like we learned last year in the CIML, you’re never good enough to just show up and win.”
Centennial will try to rebound this weekend at the Council Bluffs Lewis Central Invitational. The Jaguars will face Lewis Central on Friday at 6 p.m. and Omaha (Neb.) Skutt Catholic on Saturday at 10 a.m.
