Eagles’ soccer team wins league

When the going gets tough, as the adage goes, the tough get going. Senior forward and co-captain Evan Carlson capped a perfect week for Sauk Prairie with a pair of game-winning goals as the Eagles won the outright Badger North Conference boys’ soccer championship. Carlson wrapped up the week with his seventh multi-goal game and fourth hat trick this season to lead Sauk Prairie to a 3-0 victory over visiting Mount Horeb last Friday night. A four-year starter, Carlson scored the clinching goal in the 87th minute to secure the Eagles’ 2-1 victory over visiting Waunakee, the defending conference champion, on Oct. 22. “He’s something else,” Sauk Prairie coach Drew Kornish said of Carlson, who leads the Eagles in goals (29) and points (67) and ranks second in assists (nine). “You count on players like Evan to be able to make plays but you know at some point, that you will need some other guys step up, and we’ve had some other guys step up. “But Evan continues to be that guy, game in and game out, for us. He is an impressive player.” Sauk Prairie, ranked eighth in last week’s Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association Division 2 poll, finished the regular season at 16-2-1, including a 6-0-1 record mark in league play. Mount Horeb (10-6-1) finished second in the conference at 6-1-0. “It’s been a while since the team has beaten Mount Horeb, so just to beat them is quite an accomplishment for the guys,” Kornish said of the Eagles, who are riding a 10-match winning streak and hadn’t defeated Mount Horeb dating back to at least 2010. The championship is the Eagles’ first since they tied with Mount Horeb for back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2016. “Winning conference was always my priority,” said senior defender and co-captain Blake Gibbs, who was a freshman on the 2016 squad. “When we won it as a freshman, I really didn’t think I did much. I wanted to win one my senior year. We made it happen.” Against Mount Horeb, Carlson scored in the 27th minute off an assist on a reverse pass from sophomore Quinn Baier to help the Eagles take control early. “That was a great confidence boost because it showed us that we could really play with them,” Gibbs said. “It really set the tone. Especially when we got the second goal, it seemed like they weren’t playing for a conference title anymore.” Carlson picked up a loose ball and made a run down the right side of the field before he slammed home an unassisted goal in the 41st minute to send Sauk Prairie into halftime with a 2-0 lead. But the Eagles knew the game wasn’t over just yet. “With a two-goal lead at half, whoever scored the first goal in the second would have decided the game,” Gibbs said. “If they could have scored a goal early in the second half, they could have gotten so much momentum.” The Eagles’ defense rose to the challenge, keeping Mount Horeb at bay the final 45 minutes. “The key part of the second half was the first 15 minutes,” Gibbs said. “That’s what I tried to emphasize to the back line at halftime. If we can survive the first 15 minutes, we should be good momentum-wise. We did a great job of keeping the ball on their side of the field.” Kornish credited the defense for doing its part to record the team’s fourth shutout in conference play. Sauk Prairie outscored its conference opponents, 30-2, in seven league games this season. Eagles’ senior goalkeeper Riley Jelinek also made five saves to secure his 11th shutout of the season. “In my opinion, that was the best game he’s played this season,” Kornish said of Jelinek’s play against the Vikings. “He absolutely dominated his box. He was outstanding.” Kornish said he didn’t have to say too much to the Eagles at halftime on their mission for the second half. “I don’t talk to the guys a ton at halftime,” Kornish said. “I’ll give them one or two key points to work on and then they’re off and running. Every single one of them said the next goal wins this half. So they knew we were not out of the woods. “Blake and Trevor (Spray), Austin Keyser and Aaron Frey were just fantastic all second half long making sure that, combined with Riley, (Mount Horeb) didn’t have any clean looks at goal.” Carlson then put the exclamation point on the thrilling victory with a goal off a shot from senior Abrahan Castro as time expired to set off the celebration. “We play for 90 minutes so whether it’s the 90th minute or the first minute, we’re always trying to score,” Carlson said. “This feels really good. We beat Waunakee and tied Mount Horeb freshman year, but since then it’s been tough to play those teams. But this year we prepared well. We have the players, we have the coach and we have the whole community behind us. It feels good to come out on top.” However, Carlson said he wasn’t sure that he should be given credit for the game’s final goal. Following the game, Kornish said Carlson insisted that the goal be credited to Castro. “I couldn’t tell if I deflected it or not,” Carlson said. “But it should go to Abe. He’s worked so hard. He hadn’t had a goal this season and deserves one.” That drew a smile from Kornish, who earned his first conference title as a high school coach. “Evan does not want that goal even though it was announced that he got it,” Kornish said. “He said he wanted the goal to go to Abe, that he’s got plenty of hat tricks. “That speaks volumes to where Evan has come this season as far as his growth his senior season. He’s always been a fantastic soccer player. But the strides that he’s made and the character and leadership that he is carrying himself with made that a pretty cool moment for him, a pretty cool moment for Abe.” So who gets credit for the goal? “It went down in the scorebook that it was Evans’s,” Kornish said. “But everyone on the team, including Evan, knows that Abe did all the work on that one.” • Sauk Prairie 2, Waunakee 1 — It was a signature victory for first-year coach Drew Kornish and the host Eagles, who got goals from seniors Caden Pugh and Evan Carlson to knock off the defending conference champion Warriors on Oct 15. “It was a good fight, Waunakee outplayed us in every facet of that second half,” Kornish said. “And they had the wind advantage. Waunakee is an outstanding technical team, and we had a lot of grit from our guys that paid off in the end.” Sauk Prairie struck first when Pugh converted a pass from Carlson in the 12th minute for a 1-0 lead. “I played Evan the ball, and he played it back to me and I got it by the keeper,” said Pugh, who is in his first varsity season. “It was a physical game but we kept communicating and keeping each other’s heads up. It was a great team effort.” Waunakee countered when Nathan Dresen scored an unassisted goal in the final minute of the first half for a 1-1 tie at the break. Despite playing into a strong wind in the second half, Sauk Prairie held its ground against the Warriors. Then it was Carlson’s time to shine. Carlson played a ball down the right sideline in front of the Eagles’ bench, winding his way through several Warriors’ defender to slam home the game-winning goal at the 87 minute, 43 second mark. “I’ll probably remember it forever,” said Carlson, who explained that it was precipitated by a mindset that he was going to score the game-winner. “As soon as I drew on the goalie I said I had to finish it now.” Carlson did just that, slicing in a shot from about 12 yards out from the right side of the goal box and into the left corner of the goal. “That had to be a signature goal for him, absolutely,” Kornish said. “He put us on his back there and that’s what a big-time player does in that situation.” Gibbs said the Eagles couldn’t have found a better time to knock off Waunakee. “Waunakee sent us home last year so it was good to beat them with those same guys,” Gibbs said. “They were a lot faster, and they played a lot faster in the second half. But we hung on.” • On deck: Fourth-seeded Sauk Prairie hosted 13th-seeded Westosha Central in a WIAA Division 2 regional semifinal on Tuesday with the winner scheduled to meet the winner of No. 12 Portage/Poynette vs. No. 5 Baraboo on Saturday at a time to be determined. The sectional semifinals are Oct. 31 with the sectional championship match set for Nov. 2. Oct. 15 Sauk Prairie 2, Waunakee 1 Waunakee .....………... 1 0 – 1 Sauk Prairie ……....… 1 1 – 2 First half: SP – Caden Pugh (Evan Carlson), 12:00. W – Nathan Dresen, 44:06. Second half: SP -- Carlson, 87:43. Saves: W (Joe Fuhremann) 3; SP (Riley Jelinek) 7. Oct. 18 Sauk Prairie 3, Mount Horeb 0 Mount Horeb ….....…... 0 0 – 0 Sauk Prairie .....……… 2 1 – 3 First half: SP – Evan Carlson (Quinn Baier), 27:00; Carlson, 41:00. Second half: SP – Carlson (Abe Castro), 90:00. Saves: MH (Seth Aiken) 5; SP (Riley Jelinek) 5.