Eagles rout Cardinals behind big 2nd half
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Logan Goblirsch pushes the attack during a Big South Conference nondivision soccer match against Fairmont Tuesday at New Ulm High School.
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Owen Manthe races to the ball during a Big South Conference nondivision soccer match against Fairmont Tuesday at New Ulm High School.
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Jace Lohman takes a shot at the net late in Tuesday’s Big South Conference, nondivison boys soccer game with Fairmont at New Ulm High School. The Eagles ended up shutting out the Cardinals 5-0.
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Logan Goblirsch pushes the attack during a Big South Conference nondivision soccer match against Fairmont Tuesday at New Ulm High School.
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Owen Manthe races to the ball during a Big South Conference nondivision soccer match against Fairmont Tuesday at New Ulm High School.
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Jace Lohman takes a shot at the net late in Tuesday’s Big South Conference, nondivison boys soccer game with Fairmont at New Ulm High School. The Eagles ended up shutting out the Cardinals 5-0.
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NEW ULM -- Entering the half with a 1-0 lead over the Fairmont Cardinals on Tuesday night, the New Ulm Eagles wanted to create more space and separation in the second half.
They accomplished that task with four goals as they went on to blank the Cardinals 5-0 in a Big South Conference, nondivision boys soccer game at New Ulm High School.
Levi Johnson scored four goals to lead the Eagles, extending his three-game goal total to start the year to 14. Methodious Amoah added the other goal for New Ulm, now 3-0 on the year.
Logan Goblirsch's through pass found Johnson up the middle for a goal in the third minute of play to out New Ulm up 1-0, but Fairmont keeper Brady Deuel and the Cardinal defense in front of him made it tough on the Eagles the rest of the half. Fairmont's defense did pressure enough to help force the Eagles into some quick and ugly shots, but Deuel was also stopping them, something he did nine times in the opening half.
Regardless of that, the Eagles’ early strike by Johnson and ball control that held Fairmont without a shot on goal in the first half set the tone for the second half.
"Second half I opened things up -- offensively I put John [Hoffmann] up top and I put Levi back in the midfield," Eagles head coach Tim Plocher said. "I think the issue that we were running into was we were controlling the ball so much in their third that it was too clogged for us to do anything. I think that was probably evident with how the shots that we didn't have or that were kind of poor compared to some of our better ones.
"Once we were able to move back and open up the field a bit more and utilize the wings to kind of make runs and transition a lot better, that's what we worked on and I think we capitalized on that pretty well."
The second half had a a similar start to the first as Amoah broke loose and put a goal in the net quickly in the 42nd minute unassisted. Moments later in the 44th minute, Amoah found Johnson for another quick goal and 3-0 New Ulm lead.
In the 59th minute, Johnson completed his hat trick with a goal on an assist by Hoffmann for a 4-0 Eagles lead. After subbing out for the next several minutes, Johnson returned and buried another goal in the back of the net for his fourth of the night, this time assisted on by Goblirsch in the 75th minute.
Eagles goalie Brevinn Vandermause didn't have to work too hard due to the Eagles ball control but managed to pick up three saves in the win. Deuel finished with 15 saves.
"We don't know how good we are until we are really challenged," Plocher said. "That's not be bashing Fairmont by any means, but it's more of a case of if things get too easy for us, then you don't really learn. That's just anything with life, if everything's too easy for you and you're not exerting yourself, you're not challenging yourself, it's hard to improve. I think we really showed that here it was really hard for us to get opportunities to score and so what did we do, we had to open up the field a bit more and we improved. We said, 'OK, here's what we need to do to fix it.' I brought the guys together and said, 'Hey, you four guys, we're gonna change this, then we're gonna get more opportunities to score,' and it happened."
New Ulm will get the chance to challenge itself more coming up as they host Jordan at 2 p.m. on Saturday before hosting Tri-City United at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Fairmont fell to 0-2 with the loss.