After a dramatic 2-1 win over Hillcrest Friday night, the Liberators were back in action early Saturday morning with an 8:00am game against district opponent Cassville. A fired up Liberator team would strike early in the 4th minute when Kyle Slagle drilled a 25 yard shot past the keeper. Just five minutes later, Bolivar would go up 2-0 when Jake Condren scored with an assist from Jacob Hampton. Cassville would cut the lead to one later in the half on a questionable call off of a corner. It appeared GK Dale Baker had both hands on the ball when #? kicked the ball out of his hands and amongst the mass of legs and bodies, the ball somehow found it’s way into the goal. The Liberators would not be denied again though. They came out strong in the second half and took control of the game and added three more goals. Mitchell Waters and Bradley Stillwagon (2) would get the goals with Jacob Hampton, Matt Magana, and Nick Preston getting the assists. The Liberators improved to 10-4 after that game and still undefeated against district opponents!
In the championship game, the tired Liberators could just not produce much offense. Inspiring caption Landon Grider, who was suffering from stomach pain, would come in with 12 minutes to play in the half and give the Liberators a spark to finish out the half. Bolivar thought they had a goal off a corner, but as the ball crossed the line, a whistle called the goal off because of push in the back call. Grider would not return and neither would much of an offense attack for the rest of the game. Willard would get the only goal of the game when former Liberator Marion Lup would work the ball thru two defenders and the keeper to score the game winner. Bolivar would push up some bodies and try to mount some sort of offensive attack, but their was just nothing left in the tank and the Willard defense shut every attempt down.
Congratulations Liberators on a great weekend of soccer. You guys made some big strides in your play this week.
Photo courtesy of Steve “Ole” Olson of SGFsoccer.com
