Late Goal Gives Crusaders Win Against Fort Zumwalt East

Soccer forwards who perform in clutch situations are worth their weight in gold. 

And forward Conor Baker’s goal early in the second overtime period gave his team a 2-1 win over the F last night in the first round of the St. Dominic-FastLane Super Cup Boys Varsity Soccer at St. Dominic High School.

Baker said he was disappointed in a shot he missed earlier in the game. 

“I had to redeem myself,” he said. 

Baker scored at the 9:39 mark in the second overtime. Overtime play lasts 10-minutes unless a goal is scored to bring the contest to the end. Midfielder Mark Steiniger attempted a cross which was knocked down by Lion goalkeeper CJ Vaccaro. Within just seconds Baker took control of the ball and kicked it into the goal.

The Crusaders scored early in the contest. Alex Brown scored a goal with 31:41 left to play in the first half. But it didn’t take the Lions long to answer the goal.

Twelve minutes after falling behind 1-0 the Lions’ Jordan Swindle netted a goal to tie the contest. Swindle fired off a shot eight-yards away from the goal from the East side of the field. The ball landed in the West side of the goal. St. Dominic goalkeeper Travis Abt dove for the ball but was too far away to make a difference.

“I thought they had the play possession wise,” Zumwalt East coach Seth Wilber said. “But I thought we limited their goal scoring chances. They only had a few an unfortunately for us they finished on two of the three or four of those chances. That’s the way the game roles. We had three or four good chances to score and we didn’t put them away.” 

Wilber spoke of his team’s quality defense. 

“Our back line, we’ve been doing a lot of work with them and moving guys in and out,” he said. “We had some sophomores (Joe Malnar and Spencer Schoff) that played a majority of the game. I think (junior) Ryan Ruzycki was one of the players of the game. He really cleaned stuff up but it all comes from our midfield. Our midfield made them play long balls there at the end and that stuff is easy for Ryan to clear out of the back.”

Crusader coach Greg Koeller also thought the Lions had a credible defense. 

“We were a little frustrated going up one-goal and then conceding a goal to tie it up,” he said. “They do a good job with the defense. They stay pretty organized and they put a lot of pressure on us, but we made some adjustments with Jacob Schierding moving into more of a defensive midfield. We pushed Mark Steiniger who is normally a midfielder up top and I think that’s when we settled down. The game started opening up a little bit.”    

The game was played on both sides of the field in the first half. The Crusaders started to win the ball-control way by challenging East in the last 20-minutes of the second half.

Daniel McAteer’s shot with 21-minutes left to play in the second half from 50-yards out flew just a few feet over the goal. East’s Ryan Ruzycki fired off a shot from 30-yards out with 12:10 left to play, but Abt caught the ball for the save.     

The Lions drop to 2-2 with the loss while the Crusaders improve to 3-0. Zumwalt East will play Timberland at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday at St. Dominic in the second round of the tournament. St. Dominic will play Oakville at 6 p.m. on Thursday.