Ankeny assistant coach Trevor Neary shook hands with Waukee Northwest coach Tony Gabriel following Tuesday’s girls’ soccer showdown at Ankeny High School.
“We’ll see you again,” Neary said after the fifth-ranked Hawkettes battled No. 1 Northwest to a 1-1 tie in the CIML Conference game.
“Yeah, we will,” Gabriel replied.
Tuesday’s game had all the intensity of a state tournament matchup. The two teams could meet again in the Class 3A tournament next month at Ames.
“We would have loved to win the game, but even though we did give up a goal off a set piece there at the end, we fought the whole game through,” said Ankeny midfielder Alli Macke, who scored the Hawkettes’ goal. “We didn’t let them get another one. We showed that we can compete with the best in the state and that we are a top team that definitely has the potential to have a great run at state.”
The draw was the third in conference play for Ankeny, which is now 3-1-3 in the league and 8-2-3 overall. The Wolves’ records are 6-0-1 and 10-1-1.
Northwest had outscored its first six CIML opponents by a 16-2 margin. The Wolves’ only loss came at Gretna East (Neb.), 5-1, on April 26.
“That’s obviously a really high-level team,” said Neary, who guided his team in the absence of head coach Simon Brown. “That’s a state championship caliber team. They haven’t lost in state. They haven’t even tied in state. We’re one of the few teams that has actually scored against them. To take them down to the wire, that’s obviously a good sign at this stage in the season. I’m so proud of the girls.”
The Wolves outshot Ankeny by a 26-11 margin, but the Hawkettes took a 1-0 lead when Macke blasted a shot from about 30 yards away past Northwest goalkeeper Grace Thomason in the 60th minute.
It was Macke’s eighth goal in the last four games and her team-leading 12th of the season. Ava Paoli earned her seventh assist, which leads the squad.
“It was similar (to my first goal on Monday at North Polk),” Macke said. “We just got a nice breakaway, and I saw the keeper was a little off her line. I just shot it, and it went right over.”
Macke was limited to just three shots in the game. She often battled with Northwest midfielder Josie Jones, her future teammate and roommate at Iowa.
“I was being marked pretty tightly,” Macke said. “They are a really good team 1 through 11–they have great players. They just possess the ball well, and we just needed to find some different ways to get me the ball at my feet or in space.”
Northwest threatened a few times to score an equalizer, but Ankeny goalkeeper Sylvia Bartlett refused to buckle. She finished with seven saves.
“It’s nice to just get out there and be able make those saves for my team and just be there in the back,” said Bartlett. “We’re kind of a brick wall right now.”
However, the Wolves finally broke through after a foul was called on Ankeny with about 7 minutes left. Izzy Simonini took a direct kick that found the head of Romey Croatt, who directed the ball into the net for her sixth goal of the season.
“You always wish you can get those,” Bartlett said. “It was a great shot–credit to Northwest right there. You always feel like you can do more, but that really was a great shot.
“It sucks to get scored on, but a tie is a tie. It’s not a loss. We’ll take it when we can get it, especially against the No. 1 team,” she added.
Although Ankeny had just played one night earlier, the Hawkettes continued to battle until the final whistle. They nearly won the game off a corner kick in the last minute, when a shot by Sydney Van Houweling deflected off the crossbar.
“That’s just kind of who we are,” Neary said. “We’re relentless energy all the time. Out of possession, we take the game to teams. I thought they lived up to who we were today even though they played 24 hours ago against another high-level team.”
The Hawkettes will host Urbandale for their Senior Night on Friday. The J-Hawks are 0-7 in the conference and 4-10-1 overall.
Urbandale dropped a 2-0 decision at No. 4 Waukee on Tuesday for its seventh consecutive loss.