Cape soccer ties Caesar Rodney 3-3
After 100 minutes of intense action on the Riders home pitch, the Cape and Caesar Rodney soccer squads battled to a 3-3 tie in a crucial Northern Division match.
The Vikings are 5-3-2, while the Riders are 7-0-1.
After a CR goal at the 14-minute mark, everything went the Vikings’ way. Evan Burris scored just four minutes later off a Brady Spiegel pass. Senior Donnacha Hefferan hit the back of the twine on a header from a corner by Cardin Benjamin. A little luck helped the Vikings pick up a third goal, as the Riders gave up a own goal to give the Vikings a 3-1 lead five minutes before the halftime break.
The second half was all Riders, as they scored twice to tie the game. Brody Hinkle took a Wassim Rasamny pass and buried it behind Cape keeper Jake Hutchison. Joseph Honroe scored the last goal off a Hinkle assist.
The two overtimes were back-and-forth, knock-down, drag-out 20-minute battle where Cape played man down due to a red card in the second half.
The Riders outshot the Vikings 13-9. Hutchison made 10 stops for Cape, while the Riders’ Grant Parsons made six saves.
“We have to really take these next weeks seriously and everybody needs to buy in to the game plan,” said Burris. “Our biggest problem right now is being focused and getting ourselves ready to play in a highly intense match. If we want to beat Sussex Academy Tuesday night, everyone on the team needs to be locked in and ready to play.”
“We had a totally different mentality than I’ve seen all year,” said Benjamin. “I hope this game can motivate us to compete every single game for the rest of the year. I think we took our foot off the gas in the second half, but when we went down to 10 men, a lot of our boys stepped up and did not let another goal in. We’re thinking we need to win every single game possible, not only for the state tournament but also for the possibility of [winning] the Henlopen North.”
“We knew it was going to be a knock-down, drag-out battle with Caesar Rodney,” said Cape head coach Patrick Kilby. “Even when we were up 3-1, I knew the game wasn’t over. CR is just so good and talented. Our guys played so tough and so strong to earn that result through two overtimes playing a man down. We lost Brenner [Short] due to the red card, but he saved us as that red card was tactical in terms of not allowing CR to score.”
The Vikings travel to Sussex Academy Tuesday, Oct 8, for a Henlopen Conference match up with the 8-1 Seahawks.
