Patriots take on the Panthers
On September 10th, the Open Door Patriots took on the Elyria Catholic Panthers on the road. The Patriots went into this game with a 1-3-0 record and the Panthers were coming into the game with an 0-3-1 record. This was a important game for the Patriots because they have lost to the Panthers each of the past 3 seasons. Kick off was at 7:00pm under the lights at EC stadium, and the location did not seem like an issue for our Patriots.
Tyler Novak, Senior, has been a starter on the varsity soccer team since his freshmen year. ODCS Press spoke with him before the game and asked him how he is feeling about tonight’s game and he said “it’s going to be a tough game, but it’s a game that if we try hard enough, we know we can pull out this win.” Senior Tyler Haas added “ if we don’t play scared we are going to be totally fine in this game and the Seniors are going to have to step up this game, just because we go to a small school and EC is a big school does not mean we can’t still go out there and compete or even beat them.”
EC came out strong and scored the first goal. But that was not a problem for the Patriots as Tyler Haas scored a goal with just over 6 minutes to go, bringing the score even at 1-1 just before the half. Open Door’s coach Michael Perris shared before halftime that the Patriots were “ok..we are playing pretty well and I am excited to to see what happens in the second half, we will have to see how it goes and we have a chance to beat a very good team”.
Open Door came out of halftime with no fear as Luke Christofferson scored within the first ten minutes of the second half, giving ODCS a 2-1 lead. Crunch time was coming as time winded down the Panthers were not going to go down without a fight. The Panthers managed to score 2 goals to put them up by 2 with just over ten minutes to go. The Patriots were not going to go down without a fight as Tyler Novak picked up his first goal of the season. But the Panthers took that as motivation as they scored another goal with just over 5 minutes to go and put them up 5-3 over the Patriots.
After the game Senior Noah Zalaski shared his thoughts about the game, “ it could have gone a lot better but this has been the best game we have played all season, besides from a few issues here and there and we just need to still gel as a team to get a successful season”. Coach Perris added “ we played well tonight but it was unfortunate to lose that one but we feel pretty good about the way we played tonight, it’s the best we have played this year,we have things to be proud of”. As the Patriots move on in their season they will move on with a 1-4-0 record. The Open Door Patriots will take on Lutheran West on Monday, September 14th at 7:00.