BHS gives Bloodhounds first conference loss

Emotional loss

This one was emotional, it was. But it shows passion and you can’t really have passion without some emotion.”

Kevin Wellman, FM Boys Head Soccer Coach

FORT MADISON – The Bloodhounds play their second half the goodest.

That was the word of the halftime pep talk, but Fort Madison boys’ goodest wasn’t good enough Thursday night as the Hounds fell to Burlington 1-0 in Southeast Conference soccer action.

The loss brought Burlington within a game of the front-runner Bloodhounds. Both squads have one conference game remaining. The Bloodhounds (8-1, 13-2) take on Mt. Pleasant on Monday before hosting Newton on Saturday. Burlington (6-2, 7-4) hosts Washington on Monday in their conference finale.

Burlington got a fairly quick goal about six minutes into the first half for the only scoring of the night, but the first half was played predominantly on the Grayhounds' half of the Baxter Sports Complex pitch.

But Fort Madison took control of things in the second half and moved the game onto their half of the field.

The Hounds had a couple scoring opportunities in the second half inside the Grayhound box. One shot from Xander Wellman went off the left net post in a scrum of Gray- and Bloodhounds. About eight minutes later, a corner kick got loose in the box with Burlington’s goalie Cayden Lowrey out of position, but the BHS defense cleaned things up and cleared the ball.

Lowrey got plenty of work in the second half, including a bullet from Wellman on a free kick from the left side that bounced off Lowrey, but no Fort Madison players were able to collapse on the kick and it again was cleared.

Fort Madison would get one other shot on goal in the final three minutes, but couldn’t get anything put together to tie the game up.

Head Coach Kevin Wellman credited the BHS defense in the second half.

“The second half was better. We did more work to get the ball down there. But they had a lot of defenders in there and they were playing good defense kicking the ball away,” Wellman said. “From there it’s just tick-tick-tick when the ball is kicked away. It wasn’t pretty, but you don’t have to be pretty to win a soccer game.”

The win was an emotional one for BHS and players were chatting at Fort Madison after the game, drawing a yellow and a red card for two players after the game had ended.

Wellman said it was an emotional game for both sides.

“This one was emotional, it was,” Wellman said. “But it shows passion and you can’t really have passion without some emotion,” he said.

“There’s a few players on this team that are quite passionate. We will do our best at practice tomorrow and focus on the future. Nothing we can do about this one.”

Oliver Santiago had two saves on the night for Fort Madison.