Sikeston uses huge second half to thwart Saxony Lutheran’s perfect season

Saxony Lutheran's Brayden Moore, second to left, celebrates with his Crusader teammates following a first-half goal against Sikeston on Monday, Sept. 23. Saxony dropped its first game of the season in the 3-1 loss to the Bulldogs.

Kaiden Karper ~ kkarper@semoball.com

Not all winning streaks last forever. Saxony Lutheran boys’ soccer learned that the hard way on Monday when they welcomed fellow District 1 heavyweight Sikeston to town.

The Crusaders were riding high entering the game, fresh off a historic 3-2 comeback victory over rival Notre Dame and racing to a flawless 4-0 record to open the season.

However, their early-season magic came to a halt as Sikeston’s overpowering offense in the final 40 minutes proved to be too much as the Bulldogs overcame Saxony Lutheran 3-1 courtesy of a PJ Farmer double and a Tristan Wiggins scoring strike.

Early on, the Crusaders (4-1) started off hot and took a 1-0 lead into the break when Brayden Moore scored 21 minutes in after breaking down the left flank, cutting into the open space and firing a shot past the Bulldog goalkeeper in the Sikeston net.

That's until Sikeston responded after intermission. Wiggins showed his cool as he led a fine counter from a Saxony attack and fired in a left-footed strike to knot things up 1-1.

Sikeston then suffocated the Crusader back end over a two-minute spell around the 60-minute mark. Farmer, a SEMO basketball commit, struck twice in two minutes, netting two header goals, including one that sealed the win with a curled effort in the 61st minute, to give the Bulldogs a 3-1 edge.

“I think we had been playing pretty aggressive defensively in the first half,” said assistant coach Andrew Lysell, who stepped in as the interim head coach for an absent Chris Crawford on Monday. “Then I think that fatigue set in a little bit. Not to make an excuse, but it just takes over sometimes. They’re so fast and they won the ball well, and they play the ball far. So if you don't have possession, a lot of it can be a lot of back and forth and chasing after the ball.”

Lysell said the biggest room for improvement revolves around fundamental passing and taking the pressure off the defense.

“We’re going to work on getting the ball into our forwards' feet, and laying it down into the midfield a little bit just to connect the three lines of the team: the defense, the midfield and the offense,” he said. “Once we can do that, we can actually get the ball into space and maybe try to turn and attack.”

Saxony Lutheran will look to turn and attack when the team returns to its home field Thursday, Sept. 26 for a 4 p.m. match against Farmington. Sikeston will look to keep the momentum and its high-powered offense rolling Thursday when it hosts Poplar Bluff at 5 p.m.