Huskies finish regular season

By Jeff Yoder
Posted 5/15/22

The Highland soccer team continued to battle through the toughest part of its schedule, facing No. 3 Burlington Notre Dame for the second time this season. 

The Huskies fell 10-0 to the …

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Huskies finish regular season

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The Highland soccer team continued to battle through the toughest part of its schedule, facing No. 3 Burlington Notre Dame for the second time this season. 

The Huskies fell 10-0 to the eventual conference tournament champion Nikes, who outscored their three opponents 28-0 in the SEISC tournament. 

Despite the lopsided score, coach Dylan Stewart has seen some growth in his squad over the 12 regular season games. 

“I think we're communicating a lot more and that showed,” Stewart said after the game, which ended by mercy rule after 40 minutes. “We played a little longer against them last time and I would have liked to go a little longer today, but they came ready to play today.”

Senior Parker Davis led the Nikes with three goals and four assists. All ten goals Notre Dame goals were scored by seniors. 

“That was probably the best I've seen them all year, and we forced them to play long switches,” Stewart said. “I thought our team did really well compacting the ball-side of the field. Unfortunately, they just have the skill to play those 40-yard passes across the field.”

Notre Dame eventually won the tournament championship with a 10-0 victory over Mediapolis.

“That’s a tough team, but we learn a lot every time we play them," Stewart said. "So it's always good to test ourselves against that.”

The Huskies got their first win of the season with a 5-2 defeat of Sigourney-Keota on April 21, but the schedule has been brutal since. After the win, Highland faced Mid-Prairie — undefeated and ranked No. 1 at the time. A 5-0 loss to SEISC North leaders Mediapolis followed, before back to back games with No. 3 Notre Dame. 

Friday was the final game of the regular season for Highland’s seniors leaders Eli Slaymaker and Yahir Jimenez.

Slaymaker made over 100 saves and played an important leadership role from the goalkeeper position. 

“Great leadership,” Stewart said. “He always runs practices and gets the kids together. He’s always communicating — you can hear him every game screaming back there.”

Jimenez had three goals and an assist to lead the Huskies in points this season. 

“He's our winger, has a great work rate,” Stewart said. “You can tell he's putting everything out there. So having those two really lead our practices and showing some of these younger kids our expectations —it's been beneficial. That’s going to be a hard hole to fill next year.

“Carson Mellinger decided to come out this year and she's been playing hard too. Unfortunately, our other senior Zoey Robidoux got hurt. But she was a first-year soccer player who just came out and gave it her all so that's what we want to see.”

The Huskies open the postseason on May 19 at No. 1 Assumption in a substate quarterfinal game.