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Taking full advantage

MARQUETTE – Penalties can kill momentum and the Marquette soccer team reaped the rewards of that in a high school game played at the Kaufman Sports Complex on Thursday evening.

The Redmen (9-0-2) got two penalty-kick goals from Elijah Pickard to defeat Iron Mountain 2-1. The Mountaineers (6-4) had tied the game with 13 minutes left, but Pickard answered with the game-winner with less than five minutes remaining.

“It was definitely an interesting game,” Marquette head coach Dan Menze said. “Iron Mountain played a good game. They came out and played really physical. They got us out of our game and we kind of didn’t know what to do for a while, but we pulled together.

“You don’t want to win a game on penalty kicks, but we’ll take the result. I thought we played well, but we can definitely play better.”

The second half was well balanced with each team getting nice chances at the net. Down 1-0, Iron Mountain’s first good chance to tie the score came on an offensive rush that was stopped by Marquette goalie Ben Noble, and a second chance came with 16:40 remaining when Jaden Vicenzi fired a shot from outside the box that was knocked wide by Noble.

Marquette had an opportunity to extend its lead seconds later when Rory O’Connor broke free through the middle of the Mountaineers defense and as IM converged on him, he got a shot off that went wide.

With time starting to slip away, IM got the equalizer when Dane Stanchina took a long shot on net that managed to tuck under the crossbar. Stanchina seemed surprised that the ball managed to go in as his teammates congratulated him.

“I think the wind kind of carried that ball a little bit and those shots are hard to judge because you have to know exactly where your crossbar is,” Menze said. “Ben is phenomenal at getting the balls that are kicked toward the crossbar, but that one floated a little too high for him.”

With the game tied, Marquette started to generate more offensive pressure. Pickard and O’Connor each had shots stopped by goalie Caleb Bryant before Pickard got his chance to save the day for the Redmen thanks to a hand-ball call.

When asked how he felt about his team’s performance, IM head coach Zack Frorenza was feeling positive.

“I’m really satisfied,” he said. “We’ve had some unfortunate breaks go against us this year where we get penalty kicks called against us and we kind of get down after it. That kind of thing can affect your psyche where the other team can get another goal and make things insurmountable, but that didn’t happen today. So that was good to see.

“We kept at it and played tough. That’s one of the toughest games that we’ve had against Marquette in a while, so we’re going to be confident if we get a chance to play them again and hopefully, we’ll be able to get a better result.”

Marquette plays Saturday at Northland Pines in Eagle River, Wisconsin, while Iron Mountain hosts Marinette, Wisconsin, on Thursday.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.

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