BROOKINGS – The Brookings boys’ soccer team took a 4-4 draw with Pierre on Saturday in a thriller at Fishback Park. The Bobcat girls fell 4-1.
Boys
• Brookings 4, Pierre 4, draw
It was a rollercoaster of a match for the Bobcat boys.
Brookings took a 3-2 lead with 23 minutes left in the game, but the Governors then scored two unanswered goals to regain the lead. With 26 seconds left, Jacob Kapperman drew a penalty in the box to force a penalty kick. Schaffer Vestal was the one to take the kick and drilled it, tying things up at 4-4. Neither team scored in the final 28 seconds so it ended in a draw.
“[Kapperman] was trying to get to his spot and he was rewarded for it,” said BHS head coach Steve Binkley. “I know our guys feel like we outplayed them, especially in the second half. So a tie isn’t ideal, but coming back to get it feels pretty good.”
Rylan Derry got the scoring going for Pierre with 36 minutes left in the first half. George Stalley then made it 2-0 when he scored three minutes later. The Bobcats cut the lead to 2-1 six minutes before the half ended on a Drew Ton goal.
Derek Brallier tied the game 11 minutes into the second half and gave the Bobcats the lead with 23 minutes left. Nathan Lieferman tied the game two minutes later and Derry gave the Governors the lead.
The Bobcats had 18 shots and six of them were on goal. Pierre had 11 shots and six of them were on goal.
Brookings is now 1-9-1 and has one game left in the regular season. Binkley said that his team is never happy with a draw, but he thinks his team can use the momentum that they built in the comeback to earn it.
“This will 100% help us going into the last regular-season game and then wherever we go for the playoffs. I think today these guys played the kind of soccer that they want to play. Most of that second half was us possessing the ball in their half. The score didn’t work out, but I don’t think we need to be concerned with that right now. … We feel really good about the way it went and going into the postseason we have a lot of positive energy,” he added.
Girls
• Pierre 4, Brookings 1
Brookings scored the first goal of the game but was unable to get its offense going after that.
Leanna Brisenso scored the lone goal for the Bobcats. She put Brookings up 1-0 13 minutes into the game.
Ryann Barry tied the game for Pierre four minutes later and the Governors took the lead on a Caytee Williams penalty kick with 15 minutes left in the first half. Barry scored her second goal with 8 minutes left in the game and then completed the hat trick with a goal with two minutes left.
“I thought the girls played hard. When we got down a goal late in the game I decided to take out a defenseman and a midfielder to try and get a goal to tie it up and when you do that it makes it harder to stop them,” said Bobcat head coach Adam Juba.
Brookings had seven total shots and two of them were on goal. The Governors had 13 shots and 10 of them were on goal.
The Bobcats are now 2-9. Both the boys and the girls will play Mitchell on Tuesday in Brookings. Juba said he wants to see his squad play as a team in its final game.
“We played like a team today and we played like a team last game against Yankton. When we play like a team I think we can compete with anyone,” he noted.
