Cedar Rapids Kennedy boys soccer tops Dubuque Senior to advance to substate final

CEDAR RAPIDS - When stressed most soccer defenses are happy to knock the ball out of bounds on the sideline rather than give up a corner kick when the ball trickles out over the end line.

Kennedy's Jacob Sarasin and his teammates stood conventional wisdom on its head by converting three throw-ins into goals in the first half en route to a 4-0 substate semifinal victory over Dubuque Senior. No. 13 Kennedy (9-8) advances to Saturday's noon final at No. 3-ranked Dubuque Hempstead (14-2), while Senior closes at 6-12.

'It was a little bit unreal to be honest,” Sarasin said.

'We work all year to get stuff like that. I wouldn't put it on me; it's the team. We worked on it in practice this week a little more than usual.

'The coaches talk about how Kingston field is a magical field, and sometimes magical things happen. I guess that's what happened today.”

These were throw-ins that traveled about 35 yards and were on the money.

'With Jacob, he's been working on that for a long time,” Nikolas Newcamp said. 'It's a unique talent which we're definitely taking advantage of.

'He's been hitting the weight room for sure.”

The first throw-in goal came 1 minute, 19 seconds into the match as Sarasin connected with Sam Hanzelka. That seemed like a novelty at the time, particularly after the Cougars' Mark Schulz scored a conventional goal in the 24th minute on passes through the defense from Hanzelka and Luis Granadillo.

But no, two more Sarasin throw-ins found the heads of teammates Newcamp and Skylar Showalter before the end of the half. Newcamp's goal just barely grazed his head, but he got enough to make it count.

'Yes, it definitely came off my head,” Newcamp said. 'Just a little bit. A couple of times we've scored on those this season but never this many.”

Hempstead tied with Xavier for the MVC Mississippi division title and beat Kennedy 2-1 in overtime in the regular season.

'We'll have to play our best game of the season,” Cougar co-coach Steve Robertson said.

'We're excited to play them again,” Newcamp said. 'We feel we gave away a bad game last time, lost in overtime.”

'We just didn't work as a team,” Sarasin said. 'At least in the first half performance in this game it was entirely different. It was a team effort all the way around. If we can do that for both halves of the Hempstead game I don't see any reason why we couldn't have a good performance.”