By John Miller (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Springfield, Mo. – Not all wins have to be pretty. For the Rolla Bulldogs, Thursday’s surely wasn’t.
Trailing 2-1 with just over 12 minutes remaining, sophomore midfielder Mohamed Alamaldeim scored back-to-back goals, lifting the No. 4-ranked team in Class 3 to a 3-2 win over Kickapoo.
“Mo played a great game,” Rolla coach Mike Howard said. “He’s had a great season for us. He’s just so dangerous running at people with the ball.”
But for Howard, the story of the night was larger than the play of his stud sophomore.
“Proud of the fact that we came back with two late goals,” he said, “but we just didn’t show up to play in the first half, and you can’t do that against good teams. I don’t care what Kickapoo’s record is, they play great teams, and they’re well coached. This is three games in a row where we’ve got off the bus and haven’t been ready to play. It’s something we’ve got to get out of our system before postseason starts, for sure.”
Rolla (17-3) scored first on Thursday with Gabe Stanislawski striking the left side of the net from 30 yards out. From there, Kickapoo (9-12) fought back. Cole Peebles fed Garrett Whorton in front of the net, and Whorton did the rest, equalizing in the 34th minute. In the 62nd, Jake Troye tracked down a pass on the right side, collected himself, and sent it past Rolla keeper Drew Blair for the go-ahead score.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Things looked great for the Chiefs until late in the contest, when Alamaldeim took over – something he’s been doing for the Bulldogs lately. He scored in the 68th to tie it up. In the 74th, he collected a loose ball in front of the goal and helped it find its home.
“I just did my job,” Almaldeim said. “My job is to shield the keeper so he doesn’t see (Nick Janke’s) header. The ball just came to me and I tapped it in.”
He was quick to deflect all praise to his teammates afterwards.
“I couldn’t have done it without my team,” he said. “Jarret (Gabriele) played the ball, and without him, (my first goal) would’ve never happened. Nick headed the ball, so it’s not me that did it. It was the whole team. It was a team effort.”
Rolla will host Harrisonville on Friday at 3pm. Kickapoo is idle until a meeting with Republic on Monday.
Rolla 3, Kickapoo 2
