(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The Ankeny boys’ soccer team couldn’t have asked for a better start than the one it had in the opening minutes of Tuesday’s game at Dowling Catholic.
But the Hawks spent the remainder of the game trying to reach that same level of success.
Dowling ramped up its pressure, overcame an early goal from Keaton Kobow and scored the game-winning goal in the 57th minute to post a 2-1 victory over the Hawks.
“We had a good moment from Keaton in the first few minutes to get us the lead,” said Ankeny coach Trevor Fuccio, whose team dropped to 0-2 in the CIML Conference and 1-3 overall. “But outside of that, we were second best for 79 of the 80 minutes tonight, which is frustrating.”
The Hawks were able to come out of the gates strong and put some pressure on Dowling before the Maroons got their legs underneath them.
Just over a minute and a half after the opening kickoff, Ankeny’s Cal Wahlberg threaded a pass between two Dowling defenders for fellow senior Kobow.
Kobow fired a shot from around 20 yards out, found the bottom right corner of the goal that was just out of reach for Dowling goalkeeper Ryan Kuhn and gave the Hawks an early 1-0 lead.
“We talk pretty frequently about who we are and a lot of it revolves around seniors like Keaton who can provide us something special,” Fuccio said. “But we also need other guys to chip in and provide that little bit of extra as well.”
The Maroons have been snake-bitten when it came to goal scoring in their first few games of the season.
Dowling was held without a goal in its first three contests of the season which resulted in losses against Des Moines Roosevelt (1-0) and Urbandale (5-0) and a scoreless draw against Valley.
After Kobow put Ankeny ahead, the Maroons were quick to ramp up the pressure and found plenty of chances to tie things up.
The numerous opportunities finally burned the Hawks in the 30th minute when senior goalkeeper Jackson Dockendorff saved a shot from Dowling’s Samyam Khadka and lined Landon Umthum for an easy tap-in rebound goal.
“Dowling is a good team, but a lot of what happened tonight is because we came out flat,” Fuccio said. “Nothing to take away from them, they’re a quality (side). But I expect more out of our group.”
Dowling was able to keep its pressure on the Hawks in the second half. That led to the Maroons finding the game-winning goal in the 57th minute off a cross from Luca Anderson and a shot from Isaac Fuentes.
The Hawks were able to find a little bit more success attacking later in the second half with no chances better than the ones that sophomores Heaven Thabow and Ryler Ntem had.
Thabow nearly tied the game up shortly after Dowling’s goal after receiving a pass from Wahlberg while splitting two defenders, but had the shot sail too high and wide of the net.
Around the 70th minute, Ntem found a chance to rifle a shot from 15 yards out and had the ball ring off the cross bar before getting cleared out by the Maroons–who then held on for the win, improving their marks to 1-1-1 and 1-2-1.
“At the end there was a bit more urgency, and we were willing to be a bit more physical and put in a bit of tackles,” Fuccio said. “It only lasted 4 or 5 minutes there at the end, but if we’re willing to do the intangibles and do the little things, opportunities will arise. It’s just unfortunate that it wasn’t that way for the whole 80 minutes.”
The upcoming slate for the Hawks doesn’t get any easier with four big tests on the horizon.
Ankeny will head back to West Des Moines this weekend for the Valley Invitational, where the Hawks are set to face off against Cedar Rapids Prairie (3-0) on Friday and Ames (2-0-2) on Saturday.
Ankeny will then return to CIML play next week by facing two more unbeaten opponents in Johnston and Ankeny Centennial.
“We’ll watch film on this, look through the items where we’re not doing the intangibles, where we’re not willing to tackle and be physical and hopefully that can change going into (the Valley Invite),” Fuccio said. “We’re a young group, but we’re too inconsistent for my liking at the moment. We’ve just got to make sure we find a way to do the intangibles 100 percent of the time.”
