Petoskey plays to third straight Big North tie
PETOSKEY — To say it’s been tough to get any kind of consistency going for the Petoskey girls’ soccer team is one heck of an understatement.
Entering Thursday, the Northmen had played just four games, with weather and luck the main culprit in moving or cancelling games this season. For many of their opponents, they’re working on game 10, 11 or 12.
With that shuffling comes some little parts of the game, like learning the tendencies of teammates and opponents or gaining confidence around the net, that have been hard to build.
When they welcomed in Alpena on Thursday, just about every area of Petoskey’s game was crisp, all but the part that adds goals to the scoreboard, resulting in a 1-1 tie with the Wildcats.
“Our girls played great, they created countless chances, we’ve just got to finish them,” said Petoskey coach Zach Jonker. “At the end of the day, we don’t get a score for how beautiful we play, we’ve got to stick one into the back of the net. We just weren’t clean enough in front of the goal today, but it was a great effort and the buildup at times was good.
“You’re starting to see some of that in-game finishing is still a little rough around the edges. Some things are harder to simulate in training than others.”
It came as a third straight tie for the Northmen, moving them to 2-0-3 overall and 1-0-3 within the Big North Conference. Alpena moved to 6-3-2 and 1-2-1.
Those chances Jonker mentioned came in bunches in the first half, with multiple corner kicks from both sides of the field, along with multiple goalmouth scrambles and shots that sailed just wide.
None of them resulted in scores and a 0-0 tie went into the half, despite the Wildcats having just one shot in the first half, a breakaway saved by Petoskey’s Sadie Corey.
In the second half, Petoskey’s Lauren Cole finally broke the tie on a ball served into the box by Annika Gandhi, making it 1-0.
"It was a spectacular effort from Annika to keep that ball alive and slot it back on the angle and a world class first-time finish to the upper corner from Lauren," said Jonker. "That goal is the template for how we want to play in the final third of the field."
The lead stood until around seven minutes left, when a thrown-in by the Wildcats later resulted in a score by Alpena’s Sophie Kindt.
Chances came sparingly from there on both sides and another tie was put on the schedule for Petoskey.
“It’s not the outcome we wanted, but you’ve got to learn from it,” said Jonker. “We just weren’t able to get one clearance all night and they made us pay for it. I don’t think they had a single corner kick, we only gave up two or three goal kicks. We were pretty dominant, but not on the scoreboard, where it needs to be. This group’s resilient and we’ll put in a good shift tomorrow.”
It’s right back to it on Friday for Petoskey, as they welcome in Traverse City West for a re-scheduled game that was supposed to come on Tuesday. The game will be played at 5 p.m. at Northmen Stadium.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Petoskey plays to third straight Big North tie
