Cloquet Bringing Home The Hardware – 3rd Place Champions

Wes Vork-NSO

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Nov 3

Wes Vork-NSO

MINNEAPOLIS – Coming off of a tough 2-1 loss to Blake School on Monday, the Cloquet Lumberjacks came out and played inspired soccer to beat La Crescent 1-0 and capture 3rd place in the 2009 Minnesota State Girls Class A Soccer Tournament.

Cloquet came out strong from the start and their efforts paid off in the 13th minute when Jessie Ryan and Emily Johnson hooked up for a beautiful give and go from near the top of the box.
Ryan got the easy tap in to give the Jacks a 1-0 lead. After the game, Johnson commented on the team’s effort, telling NSO, “We [the seniors] talked in the locker room about this being our last game in a Cloquet uniform and wanting to go out with a win. The intensity today was like I have never seen before.” She then added, “Ending our season and career at the dome with a win is just amazing.”

Perhaps the biggest play of the game, not counting Ryan’s goal was with about 34:00 left in the second half, was when an errant clearing pass ended up on a Lancers’ foot directly in front of the Jacks net. Cloquet goalkeeper Kaitrin Rathe played the shot perfectly, knocking it down and pouncing on the loose ball.

Cloquet head coach Dustin Randall had high praise for his junior netminder, “Kaitrin really came up big for us on that shot. We talked all year about not being beaten by a mistake. This is a great bunch of girls and they have helped each other out all year.” Rathe added, “With the amount of seniors we have, I wanted to stay focused and help win this game for the team.”

Rathe stopped all three shots on net, picking up her 11th shutout of the year. Cheyanne Carpenter stopped three of four shots for the Lancers.

With the win, Cloquet becomes just one of four girl’s soccer teams to end their season with a win. Coach Randall commented on the state tournament experience by stating, “I am very happy for this bunch of girls. They realized they are good enough to compete with anyone…We played three real close games against good teams and won two of them.” “This is also a real plus for our program with the underclassmen getting experience playing in the Dome,” Randall added.

Senior Katie Pappas and junior Jessie Ryan will be named to the 2009 Class A Girls Soccer All-Tournament team during the championship games on Thursday. Randall thought the honor was well deserved for both girls stating, “Jessie and Pappas had a phenomenal tournament. Katie got her head on virtually every ball.”

With the win, the Jacks finish up the 2009 campaign with a record of 16-4-1, going 13-2 down the stretch.
Parents and community are invited to
attend
the
welcome home ceremony
at 9:05 am Wednesday at the Cloquet Senior High School.

Tournament note:
While official stats are not kept for state soccer tournaments, it is believed that Paul Yonga of Totino-Grace recorded the quickest goal in tournament history. Yonga scored when his opening kickoff went over the head of the Simley goalie and into the net just 3 seconds into the Class A boys third place game between Totino-Grace and Simley.

Wes Vork can be reached at wes@northlandsportsonline.com