Kennedy wears out Roosevelt, gets West next

DES MOINES - The losing teams had been handed their participation trophy, the crowd at Cownie Soccer Park was dispersing and Cedar Rapids Kennedy had already flipped the page to look at its next opponent.

It's an opponent the Cougars know very well.

“Tomorrow's the game we've been waiting for for a long time,” said Kennedy's Phil Vermie after his team's 2-0 win over Des Moines Roosevelt in a Class 3A state tournament quarterfinal Thursday. “West beat us in the regular season in May. We beat them last year, and that was a big win for us. We're hoping to beat them again and go on to the finals.”

To be honest, not many folks are giving Kennedy (16-4) much of a chance in today's 5 p.m. semifinals. West (20-0) has won 30 games in a row, including a 2-1 victory over the Cougars in May and a 8-0 quarterfinal romp Thursday over Sioux City East.

But Kennedy had a second-half lead this season against the mighty Trojans. The last time West lost was May 2, 2009 - to Kennedy.

“You know when you come out here, you've got to play the best,” said Kennedy Co-Coach Steve Robertson. “To be considered the best, you've got to play and beat the best. That's what we're going to get tomorrow. Everyone is looking at West as the best team, and there's no reason you shouldn't look at West at the best team.

“They haven't lost since we beat them over a year ago. But we played them tough (this season). We know that this is going to be a fight.”

Kennedy TKOed Roosevelt (15-5) in this fight thanks to a two-goal second half from Vermie. The senior forward scored five minutes into the second half, then converted a nifty crossing pass from Erik Boyer eight minutes later.

That seemed to take the air out of Roosevelt, which never seriously threatened offensively the rest of the game.

“In the first half, we were getting kind of scared,” said Vermie. “We were just dominating, we were pushing them. The last five or 10 minutes, they started working the middle (of the field) better than we were. Coach just told us to keep doing what we were practicing. Keep working hard, don't let down. It worked.”

“I think that you could see that we were slowly wearing them down,” Robertson said. “We knew coming out here that it was a 5 o'clock game and there would be heat. We knew that depth would be important. And besides our abilities, we have good depth. We used that.

“We just kept driving that them. Never gave them a moment to breathe.”

Here is a short video interview with Vermie: