A little bit of banter and a healthy dose of offence.
The second Okotoks high school soccer derby served up the thrills and combativeness one would expect as the Holy Trinity Academy Knights edged the improved Foothills Falcons by a 6-4 count in a feisty affair with five yellow cards handed out on May 19 at Riverside Park.
“It’s always fun to play against HTA because we’ve got some friends on the team,” said Falcons centre back Tanner Young. “It’s definitely very aggressive. There is a lot of bodying up, a lot of joking, but aggressive play and contact.
“Nobody is out there with malicious intent, just some fun banter.”
The teams certainly came out with goal scoring intent from the get-go.
Foothills’ Jack Thomas tallied in the opening minutes followed moments later by a low strike to the back of the net from HTA midfielder Tristan Masse.
The Falcons would quickly regain the lead when striker Jose Gomez beat Knights keeper Carson McKenzie to the ball and chipped it on goal with a brilliant one-touch display.
“The past two games we played shorthanded and that might have affected us today,” said Knights winger Sebastian Nowak. “We have to play more compact. Everybody has a role and if you don’t play your role it’s going to cause a goal.”
Not to be outdone, the Knights again levelled things up when striker Nick Wielgus tip-toed down the sideline and set up a wide-open Aria Kabganian.
Wielgus then turned from playmaker to finisher as he showed great control to take a touch wide before curling a shot into the top corner to give the Knights their first lead of the contest.
Workhorse midfielder David Kent-Canalejo insured the teams would go into the halftime break even once again when he darted down the left sideline before setting up teammate Jeremy Fivet for a rocket of a shot from 25 yards out.
Wielgus would tally the brace early in the second-half after patiently waiting out netminder JD Douglas to make it a 4-3 Knights advantage.
“They’re really fast and it’s hard to keep up with them sometimes,” Young said. “They’re really strong with their feet on the ball and can make some really good moves.
“Sebastian is really tall and can get some nice headers in there.”
The slick winger can use his feet pretty effectively, too.
Nowak gave his squad some much-needed breathing room as he took on two defenders before unleashing a left-footed strike into the near corner.
Before they could celebrate it was once again a one goal game.
Gomez was taken down in the box on a clear-cut scoring opportunity giving Kent-Canalejo the opportunity to calmly strike a penalty shot into the low left corner.
Needing a cushion with the Falcons keeping up the pressure, Nowak gave the Falcons a taste of their own medicine with a terrific free-kick marker which beat the wall of Foothills defenders in a low rocket of a shot from 40 yards out to round out the scoring.
“I put the ball down, saw the wall on the right side and the keeper wasn’t centred,” Nowak said. “I spotted the left side and decided to go for it. I put some power behind the ball to strike it.”
The Knights took round one of the cross-town classic by a 4-1 score in the opening week of action in what was a much more one-sided contest.
“We were moving the ball better and didn’t allow the goals to get us down,” Young said of the Falcons’ improvements.
“We stayed positive and kept the intensity up a little better.”
The Okotoks schools won’t meet again until a possible showdown at the zone championship.
Foothills wraps up its schedule with a home date on May 27 versus the visiting Highwood Mustangs at 4:30 p.m. followed by a season ending road tilt in Canmore to tackle the Crusaders on May 30.
The Knights hit the road for their final two contests with dates in High River and Strathmore to take on the Mustangs and Spartans, respectively, on May 25 and 27.
The South Central Zone championship runs June 3-4 in Canmore.
