(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The pickaxe trophy for the winner of the Ankeny Derby will be sticking around Ankeny Centennial for another year.
For just the second time since the inception of the Jag-Hawk crosstown rivalry, the Centennial boys’ soccer team recorded its second straight win in the series.
The second-ranked Jaguars used a pair of late goals in the first half and a second-half penalty kick to post a 3-2 victory over Ankeny on Thursday at Centennial.
“This game always has a little bit of extra juice to it,” said Centennial coach Brian Duax. “The boys all playing together a lot also adds some juice to it as well. To me it’s another game, but to the boys, there’s a lot of emotion that runs in this game.”
“We’ve always been transparent with our guys that the product we are now isn’t the product we’ll be at the end of the year, and the goal is to be a better product at the end of the year,” said Ankeny assistant coach Jake Potratz. “To come out against a team we think is a top-two team in the state–and they showed it today–and show the gap maybe isn’t as big as we might have thought coming into the day was promising.”
Back-to-back winners of the Ankeny Derby have been hard to come by in recent seasons with the two squads trading wins dating back to the 2021 season.
Before the cancelled 2020 season, the Hawks had won four straight meetings from 2016-19 after the Jaguars opened the rivalry with consecutive wins in 2014-15.
Centennial came into Thursday’s matchup wielding the pickaxe trophy from last season’s 2-1 win and riding a 5-0-1 start to the year.
With some severe storms sweeping through central Iowa, the boys’ game got moved up in time and over to Centennial. Both teams had a chance to try to utilize some strong winds at their backs.
“We took the wind in the first half, and we wanted to score more,” Duax said. “Part of it was the weather and everybody’s looking at the weather and worried about delays. We wanted to make sure if it got delayed or called that we got our chance to go with the wind and took it the first half. We created plenty of chances, we just didn’t finish enough of them.”
Despite Centennial dominating possession in the first half, the Hawks were on the cusp of surviving 40 minutes of constant pressure unscathed.
However, the Jaguars’ relentless attack ended up paying off in the 34th minute when senior Lucas De la Cuba intercepted a pass from Ankeny, found an opening to take a shot from 15 yards out and booted the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal just past goalkeeper Jackson Dockendorff.
“Lucas is our heart,” Duax said. “Lucas defends like a warrior, Lucas helps us go forward, Lucas helps score goals. Lucas literally is our heartbeat.”
The Jaguars were able to strike again right before the end of the half when senior defender Mace Nithang played a deep ball from the backline with 40 seconds remaining on the clock.
The ball initially missed the head of fellow senior Brock Brazeau, but Centennial star forward Tate Duax was able to outsprint the defense to get to the ball and chipped it in for a 40th minute goal.
Ankeny wasn’t able to find many chances going into the wind outside of a good look for senior midfielder Keaton Kobow that went high and wide in the 30th minute.
The Hawks were challenged to step up at halftime, and the message stuck with them in the second half.
“We were a little frustrated with how things started out, and we challenged the boys at halftime to really step up,” Potratz said. “I think they did that. It didn’t go our way in the end, but we’re proud of how they stepped up, played and performed in the second half.”
Centennial continued to find several great chances at extending its lead out of half, but some big-time saves from Dockendorff opened the door for the Hawks to battle back.
Dockendorff made a save on a Garrett Christensen shot in the 44th minute and made another save on a Brazeau shot off a pass from Duax in the 48th minute.
No save was bigger than in the 49th minute when Duax attempted to head the ball over, and Dockendorff had just enough reach to jump up and knock the ball up and hold onto it to keep the deficit at two goals.
“The stats aren’t always going to show how great (Dockendorff) is, but this team is nothing without him,” Potratz said. “The performance he put on today, I’m at a loss for words. He was spectacular. He made numerous saves that kept us in the game, numerous saves that I don’t know if anyone else makes those saves. He deserves all the credit and all the praise.”
Dockendorff and the Ankeny backline’s effort in the early stretch paid off when senior Cal Wahlberg used the wind to play a ball up from just past midfield.
Kobow was able to track it down and place it top right in the net for his team-leading sixth goal of the season in the 50th minute.
The Jaguars stymied some of Ankeny’s hopes at rallying back when junior Maddox Rash drew a penalty in the box in the 61st minute and was awarded a penalty kick. Duax then converted the PK for his second goal of the night and his 10th of the season.
“Kudos to (coach) Trevor (Fuccio), he came up with a great plan and tried to eliminate Tate from the game, made things very difficult for Tate and made things very difficult for us,” Duax said. “Then Cal and Keaton are special players, they can make stuff happen and they did.”
The heightened emotions of the rivalry game came to a head in the 72nd minute when Jaguar goalkeeper Will Krueger knocked down Wahlberg while trying to cover the ball.
Ankeny was looking for a penalty kick to be awarded, but no call on the play led to the Hawks’ bench being assessed two yellow cards for dissent and it left the team without Fuccio for the remainder of the game.
Wahlberg was able to score with 1:14 left on the clock on a deep free kick that managed to fly over the pile in front of the goal and bounce in. But it wasn’t enough as the Jaguars held on for the victory.
“To see that second (goal) go in was nice,” Potratz said. “We wish it would’ve happened a little bit earlier, but it proved that our boys can fight and against a super quality team like Centennial, we can hang in games. It’s promising as we trend into the later part of the year that we’re trending in the right direction.”
The win improved Centennial to 3-0-1 in the CIML Conference and 6-0-1 overall. The Hawks’ records dropped to 0-4 and 2-5.
Ankeny will travel to Marshalltown on Monday for a non-conference game. The Bobcats are 6-4-1 on the season.
The Jaguars, meanwhile, will host another conference game against No. 9 Valley on Tuesday. The Tigers are 1-1-2 in the league and 4-3-2 overall.
