ASHLAND — The Perryville High school soccer team traveled to Ashland over the weekend to compete in the Southern Boone tournament. The Pirates went 1-1, pulling out a double-overtime 2-1 win over Southern Boone before falling 3-0 to Marshall.
Dezman Hampson and Roman Koenig scored in the game against Southern Boone, with Koenig scoring the game winning goal in the second overtime.
“I Thought we played pretty well,” head coach Dwaune Hadler said. “We changed some things in our system and we’re pretty new to it yet. “I thought we played well. We made a few mistakes, mostly because of the system and not being familiar with it enough. Our squad pulled out a hard comeback and got the win.”
The Pirates only had 15 minutes following the conclusion of game one to prepare for the game against class 3 Marshall.
Marshall took the win 3-0, ending the day for Perryville.
Even though the Pirates lost, they were able to hold their heads high as they kept the score at 0-0 for 60 minutes against a bigger school without rest between the two games.
Hadler said the team had made some changes before the tournament that they are still working on, he said he liked how things looked in the first hour before Marshall started scoring.
“We changed some personnel in the back and then we also changed systems,that system fits our players, I believe, better now,” Hadler said. “It contributes to the defensive side, but also it just puts a little more work on a couple of players that we can still get offensive and score some goals. That’s the thing. The defensive side I think we’ve taken to very quickly and it’s helped us. And then the offensive side, I think, is coming around, but that’ll probably be the last thing to come together with the new system.”
The Pirates have two conference matches this week against Festus and Hillsboro. Conference games were made a priority by the Pirate coaching staff before the season started, and that is still the top focus.
“We want to stay undefeated in conference, and I’m really excited to see the system,” Hadler said. “To see it continue to develop and the players learning it, and then me learning where the players should be and what their strengths are and how to utilize those strengths. But it’s exciting to see what’s happening right now. And the more they get from it, I honestly didn’t think we would pick it up so quickly. And they have, so now it’s fun to try to take advantage of it and continue on.”
