EHS Beats Pana, Altamont Falls to Mattoon in Soccer

Effingham High School captured an 8-5 win over Pana in soccer competition Tuesday evening.

Pana opened the scoring at the 32:18 mark in the first half on a goal by Nick Copley. Copley came back with a second goal with 26:50 showing. But the Hearts didn't let that faze them as they tallied the next five goals to lead 5-2 at the half. Phil Knight scored on an assist from Tyler Katz at 22:55. Michael Carie tallied at the 20:52 mark on an assist by Katz. Andrew Knight then got in the scoring column on an unassisted goal at 15:02. Katz scored at 11:13 on an assist by Carie and Carie then scored, assisted by Phil Knight at 4:23.

In the second half, Effingham tallied again as Katz scored with 29:53 showing. Copley then scored for Pana at 29:10 and it was 6-3. The Hearts tallied at 26:04 as Synne Christiansen put one in for a 7-3 lead. Pana's Jake McLeod tallied at 25:55 then Effingham's Katz scored, assisted by A. Knight at 14:47. Pana's Tristan Woolridge ended the scoring at 12:02.

Pana's Jack Epley had 17 saves while Effingham's Frank Kasdorf had two saves.

"Pana got up on us with two goals in the first 14 minutes," said EHS Coach Aaron Wites. "It was a real test for our kids after a rough last couple of games at the Charleston Red/Gold Tourney. However, we spent a lot of time yesterday in practice working on our passing in the attacking half of the field and it really showed. Even though we were down two goals, we passed the ball really well to start the game, we just weren't able to put any balls in the net. We continued to work on our passing and it paid off with five goals in a row to put us up 5-2 at half. The backline deserves a lot of credit for not hanging their heads after we gave up two early goals. They made a few adjustments on their own as they saw what Pana was trying to do offensively. The rest of the game, when our starting backline was playing together, were able to shut down a very skilled front line of Pana.

"This was by far our best passing game of the season. We saw our passing needing much improvement after our first three games and our kids worked hard in practice and really focused on it throughout the game. We continue to improve with a lot of players moving to new positions this year. Hopefully we can continue to build off of this excellent teamwide effort. We were able to get every player at least 15 minutes of playing time. It was truly a team victory."

At Altamont

Mattoon blanked Altamont 5-0 in action on the Indians home field Tuesday.

The Green Wave scored with a minute gone in the first half then tallied again at four minutes and five minutes for a 3-0 first half lead. Mattoon came back with two more goals in the second half.

Altamont had seven shots, two on goal. Doty had 17 saves. Mattoon had 28 shots, 22 on goal and two saves. The Indians drop to 0-4-1 on the season and host Olney Saturday at 11 a.m.