‘We played an excellent game’: Hawkettes top North Polk, raise overall record to 6-4

Ankeny’s Isabel Squires (middle) is congratulated by teammate Ava Paoli after scoring her second goal in Tuesday’s game against visiting North Polk. It came off an assist by Paoli and sealed the Hawkettes’ 3-1 victory. (Photo courtesy of Travis Squires)

The Ankeny girls’ soccer team bounced back from Monday’s loss at Waukee with a 3-1 victory over visiting North Polk in a non-conference game on Tuesday.

It was a matchup of neighboring schools and the fourth-ranked squads in Iowa’s two largest classes.

“We played an excellent game,” said Ankeny coach Gavin Mason, whose team is now 6-4 on the season. “Our energy was great, we moved the ball really well, and we worked hard as a unit to defend.”

**Ankeny’s Avery Taylor takes a shot on goal during Tuesday’s game. (Photo courtesy of Travis Squires)**

The game was tied at 1-1 at halftime. The Comets (7-2) essentially scored on an own goal, but it was credited to Ava Gibson.

“We started the game strong and controlled play throughout,” Mason said. “We were very unfortunate to concede in the first half; it was a big deflection on a shot from distance that Kyla (Schaapveld) otherwise had covered. But as has been the theme of late we didn’t panic, and we knew that it was just a matter of time before we would convert some of the chances we were getting.”

The Hawkettes then scored twice in the second half to hand North Polk its second loss in the last three games. It took 21 saves from senior goalkeeper Madelyn Cory to prevent a larger margin of victory.

“Credit to their keeper,” Mason said. “She was excellent and made a lot of saves tonight which kept them in it. We had 18 shots on target to their three.”

**Ankeny’s Isabel Squires scores the first of her two goals during Tuesday’s game. (Photo courtesy of Travis Squires)**

Isabel Squires had two goals for Ankeny, giving her six on the season. She returned to the midfield after seeing some action at goalkeeper in each of the last two games.

Ava Paoli scored what proved to be the winning goal, her team-leading seventh of the year. She also had an assist on Squires’ second goal that completed the scoring.

Abby Steinkamp contributed an assist on Squires’ first goal. It was her third of the season, tying her with Sophia Kephart and Abby Stetich for the team lead.

**Ankeny goalkeeper Sophia Kephart is congratulated by teammate Sydney VanHouweling after making a save during the second half of Tuesday’s game. (Photo courtesy of Travis Squires)**

The Hawkettes again played without starting goalkeeper Paige Hartz, who is out with a concussion. Schaapveld played the first half in goal before Kephart took over for the final 40 minutes.

Ankeny will host a CIML Conference game against Dowling Catholic on Friday. The Maroons are 1-2-1 in the league and 2-5-3 overall.

Dowling was slated to host Des Moines Lincoln on Tuesday, but the non-conference game was postponed after the Railsplitters were involved in a car accident earlier in the day.