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Johnson, Amoah lift Eagles to comeback victory

By Travis Rosenau 5 min read

NEW ULM -- Down 2-0 with 20 minutes left in Friday night's nonconference boys soccer game with the Hutchinson Tigers, the New Ulm Eagles needed to find an answer fast.

They found that answer from the senior duo of Methodius Amoah and Levi Johnson.

First was Amoah's sneaky goal in the 62nd minute before an Amoah-to-Johnson goal tied the game in the 64th minute. Amoah later fed another pass to Johnson, who rifled in the game-winning goal in the 76th minute of play to lift the Eagles to a 3-2 win.

After graduating star striker Jackson Ocampo last year, the Eagles have needed another player to step up and so far it's been Johnson, who scored five goals Thursday night in a 6-0 rout of Southwest Minnesota Christian in Edgerton. Friday night was another big game from Johnson.

"I feel super comfortable," Johnson said. "I've just been so ready for this role. I've always felt like a leader for my summer team. … Stepping into the varsity team last year with all the older kids, I was perfectly fine with having other people be the go-to guys. Fair enough, that's how it should be, but I was so ready. This is great."

The second half was a big swing from the first half in terms of efficiency, but it wasn't due to any lack of effort. While the Eagles just rolled by Southwest Minnesota Christian, they had to find their footing a bit in the first half of Friday's game against a tough defense and senior goalie Cody Michaelis.

"I think we were the better team and I'm happy we came out on top," Eagles head coach Tim Plocher said. "Our ball movement was great, their defense was great, their goalie is one of the best goalies I've seen, he had some insane saves off our shots, too. I went out and gave him a quick congratulations and a 'Great job and good luck on your season,' because that was phenomenal."

Despite getting off seven shots on goal and having several other attempts at the net in the first half, the Eagles were unable to get one past Michaelis. The Tigers, meanwhile, had just one solid attempt at the net off a corner kick and got a header by Alexi Ozuna Garcia to sneak into the back of the net in the 12th minute for a 1-0 Tigers lead. Other than that, the Eagles controlled the ball but failed to make something happen.

A free kick by Logan Goblirsch was deflected and caught in the goal area by Michaelis with a little more than eight minutes to go in the half and another free kick minutes later by Goblirsch was also saved. Moments later, the Eagles got a nice cross from John Hoffman that bounced in front of the net but was kicked out of trouble by the Tigers, bringing the half to an end with the Tigers up 1-0.

Eagles goalie Brevinn Vandermouse, who had four saves on the night, stopped an early shot in the second half, but the Eagles continued to control the ball and push the pace offensively. The Tigers ended up getting another strong corner kick that directly led to their next goal and 2-0 lead when Grayden Macmullan's corner kick found the far post and banked in during the 59th minute of play.

"Their goals were off corner kicks, that's just what we've got to work on here," Plocher said. "Both of them, the beautiful one back post, no one's really gonna stop unless you're just standing there. The front post, we don't know what happened there. Some people said it hit the goal post, we don't know, but the ref didn't see it, so it didn't happen. That's gonna happen every game, things are gonna happen, so we've got to make sure we capitalize on things and we did. We didn't just put our heads down and give up. We said, 'We're gonna win this game.'"

Down but not out, the Eagles once again got the ball back across midfield and after a quick restart, Amoah took the ball in and scored unassisted to have the Eagles on the board. Moments later, Amoah got a pass off to Johnson, who cut in close and booted the ball past a diving Michaelis to tie the game and energize the Eagles.

New Ulm had a couple of other solid chances to score after that, like when Goblirsch threaded a pass to Amoah, who dished it back to Goblirsch in close. Goblirsch got a shot off, but it found the post with just over five minutes left.

Not concerned with the miss, Amoah's next pass found Johnson, who used his right foot to put the Eagles ahead.

"The pressure is on," Johnson said of his game-winner. "I know my speed, I know my incredible dribbling abilities, so when I see that there's no blatantly open, perfect pass to make, I know it's my time to shine with my dribbling and my speed. I took it down into the box to cut left, I cut inside and there's really no stopping my right foot when I'm in that position."

New Ulm hosts Fairmont at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

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