Xavier, Fox Valley Lutheran girls soccer teams play to tie in season opener
By Dustin Riese
For AppletonSportsPage.com
APPLETON – Although the start was delayed a few weeks due to Mother Nature being Mother Nature, the 2024 girls soccer season got underway on Monday as the Xavier Hawks took on the Fox Valley Lutheran Foxes in a nonconference matchup at Fox Valley Lutheran High School.
Not knowing what to expect, both teams were just happy to be outside as the two teams opened up their seasons with a 1-1 tie.
“I never like to tie, but it is what it is,” Xavier coach John Meyer said. “We haven’t had the best weather lately, so it has been hard for us to get practice time on an actual field. I think we benefited from the wind in the first half, and they did the same thing in the second. We could have finished better at the net, but for the first game of the season I thought the girls played well.”
“You always get an uneasy feeling as a coach when you have such a nice winter and then get a snow storm early in the season,” FVL head coach Ben Stern said. “We had a lot of players playing new positions today and I think that was part of the reason why we struggled so much in the first half. We talked about some things we wanted to change at halftime and one of those things was to get better spacing on the field. It’s hard to do that when you can’t practice outside so for those reasons, this was a great result for a first game out.”
This was a tale of two halves for Xavier offensively as ut came out firing. Kylee Standish needed less than two minutes to put her first shot on goal, which was a common theme most of the game as the Xavier offense put up close to 20 shots while holding the Foxes to only one shot on goal. Standish had several shots in the first 10 minutes, as did Gabby Wasco as the Hawks dominated the pace of play in the early going.
After a long stretch of play that found both teams trying to figure things out on the offensive end, it was the Hawks breaking through first as they grabbed the 1-0 lead. With Molly Martine clearing one away and starting the counter attack, it was Standish on the receiving end of a perfectly-timed through ball and the senior took care of the rest as she blasted one far post to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
That goal seemed to awaken the Hawks offense as they put four additional shots on frame over the next few minutes only to be turned away by FVL goalie Olivia Kiecker as she did her part to keep things close.
As the second half got underway, it was the Foxes who seemed to have the momentum as they came out with a bit more energy.
Granted, that energy wasn’t resulting in a ton of offensive success, it was only a matter of time until FVL broke through. Leave it to the Hawks defense to help with that as a long ball played over the top resulted in a 50/50 challenge by Martine and Gianna Bay with Martine getting called for the foul and giving the Foxes a penalty kick in the 52nd minute. Sometimes all you need is one shot, and that is just what the Foxes needed as Bay put it just out of the outstretched arm of Martine to bring things back to even 1-1.
Consider how the second half began, that goal was long overdue as the Foxes had most of the early half possession. Like in the first half, there was a long stretch of play where neither team was able to get much of anything going as it started to become a stalemate. That was until the Hawks began to play with more desperation late in the game as they were once again the ones putting the pressure on and getting shots off.
The key moments of the game were in both the 62nd and 67th minute when Sydney Neilitz and Standish came away with quality looks only to be denied by two incredible saves from Kiecker. Those would be the final big-time scoring chances for the Hawks as they had a chance to potentially win the game late only to have time run out in regulation. Although no one likes a tie, Meyer is just happy to have his girls finally on the field as he expects big things from his group this season.
“Our goal this season is to be the Bay Conference champs,” he said. “We don’t want to be playing at the level we are now toward the end of the season, but playing at a much higher level. That can only happen if we work hard to improve every day, which is something I’m not worried about. We have a busy week of games ahead of us, so these girls are going to find out real quick what they are made of.”
The same can be said for Stern, who is also expecting a great season from the Foxes once they get rolling.
“One of our big goals for the season is that we want to be conference champs,” he said. “Over the last couple of seasons we have graduated a ton of kids, so this season we are hoping to bring in the next generation of FVL soccer. Most importantly, this group gets along great and we want that to continue and have a great time this season.”
Xavier hosts Seymour for its Bay Conference opener Tuesday. Fox Valley Lutheran will also be back in action Tuesday with a nonconference game at De Pere. Both games start at 6:30 p.m.
Foxes 1, Hawks 1
Xavier 1 0 – 1
Fox Valley Lutheran 0 1 – 1
First half: 1. X, Kylee Standish, 23:00.
Second half: 2. FVL, Bay, 52:00.
Records: Xavier 0-0-1; Fox Valley Lutheran 0-0-1.