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Farmington soccer scores three goals in six minutes, defeats Sikeston in C3D1 semifinals Tuesday
SIKESTON — Going into their match on Tuesday evening, the Sikeston soccer team knew that Farmington was going to be a challenge.
Losing to the Knights at the beginning of October 10-1, Sikeston also knew what they had to do defensively to come away with the upset victory over the top seed in the Class 3, District 1 Tournament.
A couple of breaks here and there though, wound up hurting the Bulldogs, as they fell 3-0 to the Knights. The loss marked the 10th straight defeat to Farmington — combining both regular season and postseason play.
“We changed formations,” Sikeston head coach Gabe Dement said. “We went to what’s called a 4-5-1, and I wanted my offensive center-mid to close off their defensive center-mid, which is Cole Gerstenberger, and prevent service. So, the 4-5-1 was meant to be compact and meant to force them to play backward and then hope for a counter or hope for a mistake by the defenders and try to capitalize on that. You know, we lost to them 10-1, at their place, and so the thought is we’ve got to figure out a way to slow them down. We’re not going to be able to score with them, goal-for-goal, that’s just not going to happen.
“So, if we try to play offensive, so the thought process there was to play defensive and honestly they scored that first goal on just the mistake. Just an unlucky pass, we were just trying to keep possession there, and you know, it was a bad touch. Bad touches happen to everyone. That’s what I was telling our guys. Once that goal happened, we lost our shape for a few minutes, and when you lose your shape for a few minutes, you lose your defensive shape, you forget to rotate; you forget to do something. You don’t have your head on a swivel; next thing you know, a team like Farmington is going to capitalize on that. They’re just going to think, think goal, and so that’s what kind of happened those last 11 minutes of that first half.”
Farmington scored all three of its goals in a six-minute stretch.
The first goal came in the 28th minute when Bryce Sancegraw — who scored two goals in the game— scored to put the first tally on the board.
Just one minute later, Gatlin Roberts scored off of a rebounded save attempt. Being in the right place at the right time, Roberts capitalized and extended the Farmington lead to 2-0.
Then, with seven minutes to go before halftime, Sancegraw added the finishing touches to the impressive six-minute stretch, breaking away to where it was just him and goalie Clark Steward in a one-on-one battle.
“It’s soccer, so we just keep on moving the ball,” Farmington head coach Addae Rique said. “You know, find open players. One of the goals was actually a good repress from us. We forced them to stick, forced the turnover and one player played it in. It’s tough to really make plays, in terms of how we want to break teams down. You know, the game kind of dictates it.”
The Knights were seemingly always on the attack from start to finish, out-shooting the Bulldogs 27-15. They also added 22 shots on goal to Sikeston’s 11.
“We just continued to play,” Rique said. ‘Sikeston came out; they were very defensive. You know, they packed a lot of players behind the ball, close to the ball, and also we tried to continue to find the spaces, which was available on the field. I thought after the first quarter, we kind of settled down a little bit, we just continued to play.”
Knowing what threats they had on offense, Dement said that his team had to make sure they could try and slow Farmington down, which didn’t allow for a strong offensive showing.
“We didn’t get a whole lot of chances; it was mostly set plays,” Dement said. “A few breaks and transitions here and there. Again, we’re probably catching our breath when we win the ball. A lot of our players are catching our breath. We were chasing, chasing, chasing, and Farmington works the ball. They make you chase around, they don’t force things, and they play smart. Part of our reason for not getting a lot of offense in was the fact that we were tired. If I’m brutally honest.”
After how the first 40 minutes ended, it looked as if Farmington would build off of that with an even stronger second half.
Steward, though, kept the Bulldogs in the match on more than one occasion. Even Dement added that he was “a human highlight reel.”
The junior finished with 18 saves for the match, finishing off a strong 2018 campaign for Sikeston.
“Clark’s that type of kid,” Dement said. “He's come a long way, since his freshman year and honestly, we started him, against Farmington, two years ago as a freshman in districts, and moved my starting ‘keeper out to defense, to try to strengthen our defense. He’s going to do whatever it takes to keep the team in it. You could see the look on his face before this game started, was you’re going to have to put a really good shot on him to score on him, and if you watch that second half, we played well defensively as a team. But, when we broke down, Clark was there. Every single time in the second half. I thought he was a human highlight reel in that second half. It’s great to have him back next year, no doubt.”
Sikeston finishes its season with an 11-13 record. Farmington advances to the district championship match at 6 p.m. Thursday against second-seeded Cape Girardeau Central (which topped third-seeded North County 2-1 in the other semifinal of the evening) at the Sikeston Recreation Complex.