‘Kicks’ go Panthers’ way
Boys complete season sweep of Cyclones
This time, the “kicks” fell Siloam Springs’ way.
Less than a week after losing in a “kicks from the mark” shootout to Little Rock Christian, the Panthers came out on the friendly side of things Wednesday.
Goalkeeper Wyatt Church made two saves in the “kicks from the mark” — or penalty kicks — period and the Panthers outshot Russellville 3-1 to take a 1-1 (3-1) victory on senior night at Panther Stadium.
“On the PK side of things, we’ve always said as soccer fans, when you go down to those PKs, it’s almost like a coin flip,” said Siloam Springs coach Luke Shoemaker. “Some keepers are just guessing, some guys always go to a same spot. If you know where a guy usually goes, you’re diving that way and this series we came out on top.”
The win sweeps the season series from the conference-leading Cyclones, who are the defending 6A state champion and defeated Siloam Springs 4-1 in the finals last year. Siloam Springs also defeated Russellville 2-1 at Cyclone Stadium on April 2.
Having Church back in the goal for Wednesday’s game against the Cyclones made a big difference.
Church, a senior, did not play in the Panthers’ shootout loss to Little Rock Christian on April 25.
After Russellville’s Dylan Rice and Siloam Springs’ Danny Daugherty both missed their PKs, Church gave up a goal to Kevin Sanchez as Russellville struck first in the shootout.
Franklin Cortez answered for Siloam Springs on his PK, and Church then dove right and blocked Wesly Robinson’s PK attempt to keep the shootout tied 1-1.
Hugo Hernandez scored to the left side to put Siloam Springs up 2-1, and Church made another save in the middle on David Bonilla of Russellville.
“Whenever I’m standing there, I just hope I can make the save and I have a lot of trust in my teammates that they’ll do their part if I can do mine,” Church said “It’s a team effort. I’m glad that we can all work together to get the win.”
Shoemaker said the Panthers had a scouting report and film on some of Russellville’s shooters for the PK period.
“It helps when you can get film on people and can have an idea of which way they are going so you can talk to your keeper ahead of time, which that was the case for a couple of their guys,” Shoemaker said. “But that aside, Wyatt’s already an excellent goalkeeper. To have him back tonight and to have him in that situation, it just speaks to how talented he is. He’s been in those big moments. Semifinals two years ago, he made a couple of big saves there. He’s been in penalty kick situations throughout his career. He just has a knack for making saves in big moments, not just in PKs but in the totality of the whole match. He was big.”
Freshman Edwin Batres for Siloam Springs, who had not logged any playing time during the regulation match, stepped up to take the Panthers’ fourth penalty kick and scored for the game-winner.
“(Batres) played zero seconds of the match, but we as a staff felt that was a situation where he would step up and bury it,” Shoemaker said. “Coach Lab (assistant Ehldane Labitad) has been in my ear all week about how confident Edwin is at taking those and tonight the freshman put the ball down and ended the game.”
The Cyclones led 1-0 in regulation after Robinson scored with 4 minutes, 41 seconds remaining before halftime.
The Panthers answered in the second half with a Christian Marroquin penalty kick with 36:12 remaining after he was fouled inside the 18-yard box.
Both teams had chances the rest of the way but couldn’t convert. The game went to PKs immediately after the 80-minute regulation.
“I don’t know if I had enough players to play another 10 minutes,” said Russellville coach Jared Fuller. “This was a back and forth game. Those guys were exhausted. There’s a reason we play 80 minutes.
“Just wasn’t our night. We didn’t finish our chances. We can blame it on not getting calls, but we had the chances. You’ve got to put them in the back of the net. We played some stupid soccer in giving them a PK that wasn’t even deserved because we made a stupid decision trying to over-defend when we didn’t need to. That’s what happens, when you give good teams a chance they’re going to take advantage of it.”
Siloam Springs 11, Vilonia 0
Siloam Springs scored nine goals in the first half and added two more in the second to finish out the regular season.
Danny Daugherty, Julio Maldonado and Jose Posada each scored two goals, while Eli Jackson, Sam Jackson, Miguel Granados, Alex Rivas and Hugo Hernandez all had single goals.
Eli Jackson had five assists, while Daugherty had two, Hernandez and Jason Flores each had one.
The Panthers (15-5, 11-3) finished as the No. 3 seed from the 5A-West.
Up next
The Panthers will play at 4 p.m. Thursday in Searcy in the opening round of the Class 5A State Tournament against the No. 2 seed from the 5A-Central, which is likely to be Little Rock Hall. Siloam Springs has defeated Hall twice in the last two postseasons.