On Nov. 4, FHN played their Gold Cup game against the Francis Howell Vikings. It is safe to say that the Vikings had more experience on their roster and played better as a team to win the game, but head coach Ryan Gannon sees a lot of positive potential in his team. 

“It wasn’t the result that we wanted, but we got better compared to our previous game,” Gannon said after the game. “It was a big game, but we still have the whole season left plus the playoffs. We had a couple short handed goals and landed a couple of easy ones but overall it was pretty good.”

Howell North started that game with the dominant play of #91 Hannah Spain, who scored the first goal after one minute. But the Vikings didn’t wanted to leave it like this and scored two goals in the next four minutes. The first period ended 3-1 in favor of the Vikings. The second period started again with a dominant play of the Knights and let them get a goal after 13 seconds. There were a lot of good plays and potential in the defense of Francis Howell North.

“In this game, I think we definitely had wanted to win it, there were just a couple of bad goals that went with it,” Spain said. “We’re getting there, it’s just the first game of the season, we have plenty of room to grow.”   

In the third, the game had to be paused because #12 Bryce Longmore got hurt in a defense act.

“It’s his shoulder, I don’t really know much more,” Gannon said. “It could be a swamped bone, could be a broken bone, thankfully it’s not his head or his back.”

The final score of the game was 8-2 in favor of the Vikings. The loss dropped the Knights to a record of 0-2 on the season.  

“It’s still early on in the season, I feel like a couple of our players realized that they could have gave more in terms of effort,” Gannon said. “I hope that some of the younger guys and the newer guys were able to see what kind of effort we expect out of everyone, and I do feel like it is the beginning of the season, we just continue to grow up.”      

The players are optimistic for their upcoming game on Tuesday at Wentzville.