Yellowjackets 2, Northwestern 1 (OT)
SUPERIOR, Wis.: Saturday will go down as one of strangest days of the 2018 season for the Yellowjacket men's soccer team.
A day that featured sun when the teams were warming up gave way to torrential rain that lasted less than three minutes in the first half, only to again yield to sunshine later on. With regard to the match, Saturday's tilt with Northwestern was a dominating performance by the Yellowjackets, one that saw them outshoot the Eagles 31-10 and hold a major territorial advantage through much of the match. Still, the teams played a scoreless match for over 84 minutes. And in the end they needed extra time to decide a winner.
Enter the captain,
Eric Watson (Thunder Bay, Ontario/Hammarskjold). The junior from north of the border picked a great time to notch his first goal of the season, taking a lead pass from
Felix Blick (Linkoping, Sweden/Katedralskolan) in the box and putting his fifth shot of the match into the lower right corner of the goal to give the Yellowjackets a 2-1 victory over Northwestern at the N.B.C. Spartan Sports Complex.
Watson has been agonizingly close to getting on the scoresheet in every game this season, but it wasn't until Saturday that it would finally come to fruition, and his goal kept the Yellowjackets unbeaten in U.M.A.C. play and gave them their sixth win in the last seven starts.
The teams went scoreless through the first half and most of the second half, with the Yellowjackets being turned away time and again by Northwestern goalkeeper Aidan Lynch, who finished the match with six saves. The Yellowjackets would finally breakthrough with just over five minutes to play in regulation when a throw-in by
Mason Tynsky (Rochester, Minn./John Marshall) hit traffic in front and caromed to
Hugo Roos (Halmstad, Sweden/Aspero Idrottsgymnasium), and the senior Swede made no mistake, punching the ball past Lynch to give the Yellowjackets a 1-0 lead in the 84th minute.
Moments later, however, elation would turn to frustration as a mysterious call led to a penalty kick for the Eagles, and Tyler Hurley tied the match with 3:13 to play, evening things at 1-1 and setting the stage for Watson's extra-session heroics.
Dalton VonKaenel (Eagan, Minn./Eagan H.S.) started for the Yellowjackets and finished the day with three saves in goal, pushing his record to 4-1-1 on the year.
Up Next: The Yellowjackets (6-2-1, 2-0-1 U.M.A.C.) will return to the pitch Wednesday when they travel to take on Bethany Lutheran. Game time from Mankato, Minnesota is set for 4:40 p.m.
