Late Goal Lifts No. 10 Tigers Over No. 8 ConcordThe Warsaw Tigers never gave up Wednesday night.
The Class 3A No. 10 Warsaw boys soccer team scored with 15 seconds left in its 80-minute match with No. 8 Concord to pull out a thrilling 1-0 Northern Lakes Conference win.
“That’s what you teach your kids, never give up,” said Warsaw coach Frank Courtois. “Even in life, you never give up. You gotta keep fighting for everything you own, (everything) you work for. It’s never give up until the whistle blows.”
In a match filled with missed opportunities on both sides of the pitch, the Tigers (3-0-2, 2-0 NLC) stayed focused instead of frustrated.
Blake Burns got the ball on a throw-in with about 20 seconds left and passed to Gustav Dannevig, who found the back of the net with 15 seconds on the clock.
“We were just fighting until the end,” Dannevig said. “The energy we had left, we just had to use it, and without the team I couldn’t make it.”
Concord (4-1-1, 2-1 NLC) made one last-ditch attempt at a goal, but the ball sailed to the right of the net as time expired.
“We didn’t capitalize on opportunities and missed a lot of passes that I felt should have been to (their) feet, and they weren’t to (their) feet,” said Concord coach Shawn McCuen.
“Credit to Warsaw on how hard they pressured us.”
Warsaw struggled to control the ball early in the match, but in the second half the Tigers moved from a 4-5-1 formation to a 4-4-2 formation. Courtois credited this switch with improving Warsaw’s offensive attack.
Still, missed opportunities abounded late in the game. A shot sailed over Concord’s net in the 72nd minute. Another shot went wide one minute later.
Concord goalie Brock Eby jumped up for a save in the 75th minute, and a header off a Warsaw corner kick was wide right in the 77th minute.
The Minutemen had the ball in front of Warsaw’s net with two minutes remaining, and a hard shot on goal was valiantly saved by Harrison Mevis.
“He’s a good goalie,” Courtois said. “He gives us that strength back there, knowing that the ball’s not gonna go in that easy.”
That proved to be Concord’s last shot on goal before Warsaw pulled off the match’s lone score.
Mevis made five saves in the net for Warsaw, while Eby tallied six saves for the Minutemen.
Warsaw won 3-0 in the JV match on goals by Landon Voss, Judah Simfukwe and Brandon Lopez.
WARSAW 1, CONCORD 0
W – Gustav Dannevig (Blake Burns assist) 80th minute
