The Willard Tigers’ home opener was a stormy one, both on the field and in the skies. Riley Young’s goal in the 2nd minute of the game turned out to be the winning shot for the Tigers, but the real excitement would take place in the second half.
After Young, assisted by Brody Patillo, landed a point on the Tigers’ side just 1:02 into the game, the Eagles tried to regain their footing. They finally made some late runs at the Tigers’ goal, but still trailed 1-0 at the half.
Less than seven minutes into the second half, the aggressiveness that had already marked this matchup came to a head. During a run at the Eagles’ goal, a Willard player pulled on and ripped a Joplin player’s shirt. With the shirt dangling, players from both teams exchanged words and nearly came to blows. After ten minutes of conferring, officials red-carded a player from each team.
The Tigers’ coach Tim Magee regretted the incident and expects the team to learn from it.
“It was just one of those things where two teenagers were playing hard, and they both reacted,” said Magee. “It’s one of those kind of incidents that doesn’t happen very often with Willard soccer, but it did. It’s just a matter of keeping your composure no matter what the situation is or what’s happening around you. They’re human, and sometimes tempers are gonna flare, and that’s where you need teammates to step in and help calm things down.”
With tempers still hot, both teams regrouped and tried to seek satisfaction on the field. Weather intervened, and a 30-minute lightning delay was called with 25:48 on the clock.
With lightning still too close, that delay turned into an hour. Officials finally called a Willard win, 1-0.
The Eagles’ coach Luis Percovich plans to put this game behind him.
“It’s not how we would want any game to finish, let alone this type of game,” said Perkovich. “We came out a little slow. I thought we picked it up slightly as the game went on. It was just a weird game, because it was very physical. A lot of things were let go on both sides, which escalated to the incident. Unfortunately, we did not stick to our game plan and got caught up in all the mess. They have to regroup. They have to have a short memory, learn from their mistakes, and move on.”
The Tigers’ quick goal was the result of learning from last weekend’s Sedalia tournament, explained Magee.
“We struggled in one specific area at the Sedalia tournament, so we focused on that in practice,” said Magee. “Part of that was trying to relieve a little bit of pressure when we had the ball. When we did that early in the game, it created a scoring opportunity for Riley. For about the next ten minutes we continued to do the same thing, and then we fell back into bad habits. Joplin really started coming at us at that point. We were glad to get to halftime up by one.”
Willard will host Webb City on Tuesday. Joplin faces Nixa on Friday.
Willard 1 – 0 — 1
Joplin 0 – 0 — 0
Willard
Riley Young, 1 goal
Brody Patillo, 1 assist
