YANKTON – While Aberdeen Central started slow, the Golden Eagles finished strong, defeating Yankton 3-1 to repeat as Eastern South Dakota Conference boys’ soccer champions on Saturday.
Central trailed 1-0 at halftime, before taking control with three goals in the first 15 minutes of the second half by Tyler Bain, Lincoln Stone, and Linus Johnson (who assisted on his team’s first two goals).
Despite being behind at the break, Central coach Lance Mohr felt positive because the Golden Eagles were creating chances.
“I wasn’t too concerned, because the last 10-15 minutes of the first half, looked really good. My thinking was, we’ll kind of keep doing the same thing,” Mohr said. “We were starting to find the spaces that we need to. It was just a matter of putting the ball in the back of the net. The chances we had were all in front of the net. We just did a great job of creating those and then finishing them.”
Mohr said the Golden Eagles made a bit of adjustment against the Bucks and that made a different as the game wore on.
“The first half we sat off a little bit and didn’t press quite as high. We wanted to kind of keep everything in front of us. They can play very direct and as the half went on we built our pressure a little bit higher and higher,” Mohr said. “The goal that we gave up was just a corner kick. The ball was bouncing around and we didn’t deal with it and they finished it. But other than that, we did a pretty good job limiting their chances and created a couple of chances of our own, but didn’t score.”
That all changed at the start of the second half, when Central moved its pressure higher, and then found holes in the Yankton defense.
“In the second half we pressed all the way up and caused them a lot of problems. They had trouble getting out, and we did a better job of finding the space in behind their back line,” Mohr said. “They played a much higher back line and we just needed some time to adjust to that.”
Mohr said the game had definite segments to it, with a beginning and an end.
“The game kind of felt like a chapter book,” Mohr said. “From front to back it was different stages and we capitalized on those chances, and then did a good job finishing the game out in the second half.”
In addition to winning another ESD title, the contest was also big as far as seed points for the upcoming playoffs.
After a loss to Sioux Falls Lincoln and a draw with Watertown in their two previous games, the Golden Eagles, who host Mitchell on Tuesday, earned a victory against a winning team on the road.
“It gives us momentum, confidence heading back towards Mitchell on Tuesday and then the playoffs,” Mohr said. “We needed a good result today.”
