On September 28, Francis Howell North took on the Fort Zumwalt West Jaguars at home. The Knights looked forward to playing the Jaguars because of their last match when they lost in double overtime by a score of 0-1.

“In this game I look forward to concentrating on beating FZW because they beat us the last time we faced them with 40 seconds left in double overtime. This is a conference game so it’s very important that we win,” coach Larry Scheller said. “This is such an important game because it is a conference game so it’s important that we work very hard.”

After a scoreless first half, the Howell North Knights were hopeful as the lead was still up for the taking.

“We played a lot better the first half of this game than last, so I felt like we had more energy going into the second half,” senior Taylor Elzien said.

Despite the four injured starters the Knights were able to hold off West until the three minute mark in the second half when a foul was called and penalty kick was taken by Travis Hunt, scoring the first goal of the game. Four minutes later, with the score 0-1 West, the clock was stopped for an injury, making Josh Tanner the fifth injured player to join the Knights’ bench.

“I thought our first half-even with having injured players and people filling in- was one of our better halves of the year. I thought we played extremely organized. We didn’t have the opportunities we would have liked to have had, but I thought that was one of our better halves as far as organization and knocking the ball around,” Scheller said. 

The Knights persisted to put pressure on the Jaguars in hopes to find the goal and tie the game. This effort was once again put on hold at the 23 minute mark when West’s Jack Meuse was able to find the back of the net making the score 0-2. The Knight’s continued to put up a good fight until the game ended, continuing their now six game losing streak.

“I’m going to be honest, I thought we did a good job. I thought we played well. We had a couple unfortunate calls against us, but I really do think we played well. But we did struggle with getting opportunities on goal and keeping the ball,” Scheller said reflecting on the game.

Varsity soccer’s next game is Sept. 29 vs. CBC at 6:00 p.m. The team looks forward to taking on CBC and bringing home a win.