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Redmen reign reaffirmed

Marquette boys soccer team shuts out Iron Mountain in U.P. tourney final

Marquette Redman Raffy Millado takes the ball downfield after staling from Iron Mountain during the Gold Division Championship game of the U.P. Soccer Tournament on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018. (Journal photo by Trinity Carey)

MARQUETTE — For a long time, the Marquette boys soccer team has had control of the Upper Peninsula,

On Saturday at the Kaufman Sports Complex, the Redmen made it clear they weren’t going to let go anytime soon.

After dispatching Kingsford 4-2 in the first round of the U.P. Tournament, the Redmen shut out Iron Mountain 2-0 to win the championship and close out their season on a high note.

Marquette scored less than two minutes into the finale, but other than that, struggled for the first part of the opening half. Then the Redmen eventually got things under control and cruised to victory, leading to a big smile on the face of head coach Dan Menze.

“Obviously, we scored a minute-and-a-half in, which was awesome, but we kind of struggled to get our feet underneath us in the beginning,” he said. “After that first 15 minutes, we kind of came together.

“We lost to Iron Mountain the last time we played them and we really wanted to play them again in this game and we were really happy that we were able to.

“When we played Escanaba and Iron Mountain, they both kind of packed the box on us and made it really tough to score, and Iron Mountain played really great when we were down there. They got the ball down the field and put a couple in on us and we weren’t able to capitalize on any of our chances.

“We really went to work in our offensive zone on our formation and our structure and our spacing to try to open things up and get more scoring opportunities.”

The Redmen’s Trevor Salmon got his team on the scoreboard after receiving a cross pass. The ball bounced around in front of the net and Salmon went top left corner to put Marquette up 1-0. Midway through the first half, the teams exchanged good scoring chances.

IM had a corner attempt get headed out just wide, while at the other end of the field, Salmon got a pass from Garrett Zueger in front, but his header attempt sailed over the crossbar.

With 17:15 remaining, Marquette’s Pablo Sanchez stole the ball from a Mountaineer and made a rush toward the IM net, but he didn’t get enough lift on the ball and the goalkeeper made an easy save.

The Redmen cashed in on their next good scoring chance as Axel Vermaat corralled a loose ball in front of the net and lifted it just over the IM goalkeeper’s hands to give Marquette a 2-0 advantage.

“Trevor got a nice cross and he controlled it in there, took one touch and then buried it in the back of the net,” Menze said. “Our second goal also came off a cross and it was a freshman (Vermaat), who was recently pulled up to varsity for the rest of the season a couple of weeks ago and he’s made a big impact obviously and kind of helped ease our minds as coaches on the sidelines. We were able to get our rotations going and keep kids fresh.”

The second half was mostly uneventful with the Redmen’s two best scoring chances coming fairly early. Connor Johnson’s shot was deflected wide of the net four minutes into the half and three minutes later, Salmon’s header went wide as well. The Mountaineers’ best opportunity came midway through the half when a shot deflected off a Marquette player’s foot and went past the post.

“We went through a little lull in the season, but we came back and we ended the season strong,” Menze said. “I think we had six or seven wins in a row to end the season.

“The guys really came together and showed what we were working toward all season and it finally came to fruition in the end, which was really nice.”

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

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