The Spirit Lake Park Okoboji boys soccer team was in Ames over the weekend for a pair of games. The first saw a match up against Cedar Rapids-Prairie, the 13th ranked team in class 3A. The game went into overtime after neither team was able to score in regulation. Two 10 minute overtime periods also failed to see a goal, sending the contest into penalty kicks. Prarie won 5-4 on kicks, as Spirit Lake Park Okoboji goes down 1-0. The boys immediately began play against Grinnell, with the second line of players taking the field. Both teams failed to score by the end of the first period, however the 2nd saw SLPO pick up their first goal of the season, a rebounded shot from Ben Meyer finished by Logan Sorenson. Logan would end up with 2 goals in the game, and Spirit Lake Park Okoboji would finish with a 2-1 win over Grinnell.
quote from Coach Royce Van Roekel
“I am very proud of all 25 guys today as we have worked very hard in the preseason to be physically fit to play two games back to back with little to no drop off in our talent that is on the field at any one point in time. The guys are happy with their performance today, but there are many things we have to work on going forward throughout the season. Bad habits die hard and some of their habits go deep. We have all year to work on it and we will keep the faith all year long. Use every single day to get that much better for the next match.”