Prairie Stars see tourney chances sail wide of mark

November 12, 2008
By Marcus Johnson
Sports Writer

Photo by David Clary Goalkeeper Chance Walker reacts after the team’s loss in penalty kicks against Harris-Stowe last Saturday

Talk about upsets.

The UIS Prairie Stars men’s soccer team saw their season end shorter than they expected on Saturday during the first round of the AMC conference tournament. The Prairie Stars entered the tournament as the number three seed and were poised to easily defeat the Harris-Stowe State University Hornets who came into the tournament seeded sixth. But the Hornets came out firing early against the Prairie Stars and beat them 3-2 on penalty kicks.

The Hornets started off with an early lead in the first half at the 24:53 mark. Hornets’ Junior forward Richard Renken fired a rocket of a shot at the goal and Chance Walker deflected the ball. Hornets’ midfielder Lucas Rodrigues Alves was right there at the deflection and got the ball in the back of the net. The Hornets weren’t done after that first goal though. At the 36:24 mark Richard Renken scored again off a cross into the box, and he redirected the shot right into the back of the goal to make it 2-0 in favor of Harris-Stowe.

At the 42:56 mark, Eddie Sayon put a through ball to Jakub Piotrowski who put the ball right past the Harris-Stowe goalkeeper. The game went to halftime with Harris-Stowe in the lead 2-1. During the first half, the Prairie Stars and the Hornets were tied with seven shots on goals apiece, but UIS capitalizing on only one of those shots.

When the second half started, the Prairie Stars had one thing on their mind: to get back into the game. They tied the game up early in the second half at the 48:17 mark. Michial Filipiak crossed the ball to Adam Findley and scored the goal, tying the game at 2-2.

After that goal by Findley, the game was very quiet throughout the second half. Both teams had ample times to score the winning goal but they couldn’t take advantage of those times. This was the same case in overtime. If this game was a regular season game, it would have ended with a 2-2 tie. But with this being the conference tournament they went into a penalty shootout instead. Harris-Stowe won the penalty shootout 4-2.

With the lost, the Prairie Stars end the season with a 10-6-2 record.

View more photos in the Photo Essay