NORTH MANKATO — The cold, heavy rains after the game made the loss hurt even worse.
Mankato East boys soccer surrendered the game’s lone goal with under four minutes to play in a 1-0 loss to Rochester John Marshall on Thursday.
The Cougars are now 1-4-1 on the season.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Cougars coach Jerrad Aspelund said. “As a coach, I can see the improvement. I think it’s coming ever so slightly. But it’s tough for high school kids to know that they’re doing better when they’re not producing results.
“That’s the tough part.”
With a shade under four minutes to play Rockets’ senior Gustavs Baltavics possessed the ball on the left side of the offensive end. He booted a pass toward the net. Junior Eldin Begic was waiting patiently near the net, beating Cougars goalkeeper Collin Pierskalla for a 1-0 lead.
“We talked about how they were going to score, how they were going to try to score,” Aspelund said. “That’s exactly what they did.”
Despite multiple last-minute pushes the Cougars couldn’t create an equalizer. Rockets goalkeeper David Carter proved to be too much.
“We actually had good scoring chances in the second half,” Aspelund said. “(Carter) is an All-State goalie. He was going to be tough to beat regardless of what we did.”
Since their 2-0 season opening road win over Red Wing the Cougars have been in tightly contested games. Yet, they can’t find themselves on the right side of the scoreboard.
There’s a 3-2 loss to Winona. There’s the 1-0 loss to Northfield which saw the Cougars surrender the game’s lone goal with 4:45 to go. There’s a 3-2 loss to Fairbault, a contest where East erased a 2-0 deficit only to surrender the game-winning goal with 10 minutes to go. And when you add in Thursday’s loss with a 0-0 tie against Delano on Tuesday you have an 0-4-1 stretch.
But Aspelund and company realize that they’re a few plays away from winning each of their last five contests.
“We are on the precipice of being a really good team,” Aspelund said. “Last year we were on the other side. We had more goal scorers last year, and this year we are struggling mightily in that department.”
While goals are hard to come by early in September, Aspelund was quick to praise the team’s efforts on defense and in goal.
“(Pierskalla) was lights out tonight,” Aspelund said of the senior goalkeeper. “He lived up to the hype tonight.”
The Cougars host Simley at noon on Saturday.