IMS soccer team played the second of back-to-back games, building a 3-1 lead only to have a second half breakdown on route of a 4-3 loss against Cardinal Stritch last Tuesday at Keokuk.

Stritch got the first goal of the match, but IMS quickly answered for IMS when Tyler Hershberger curved a corner kick around the near post and in at the 34-minute mark. Hershberger added a second goal off of a long 25-yard shot. After controlling the first half, Luke Gingerich scored five minutes into the second half, heading in the ball off of an assist by Daniel Yoder to make the score 3-1.

At the 25 minute mark, goal keeper Nathan Detweiler mishandled a slow roller, letting the ball go through him and into the net, bring Stritch within one. The fluke goal deflated the confidence of IMS and goalie Detweiler and fired up Stritch, allowing them back into the game.

“After he made that mistake, you could just see his confidence level going down,” coach Marcus Miller said. “We played the night before so some of the guys were getting tired. But I think the goal was more of a blow emotionally than physically. It just zapped us and really energized Stritch. It was kinda ugly.”

Stritch began moving the ball up off of several direct kicks from foul calls and peppering the IMS goal with long shots from outside of the box, hoping to get one past. The game was then tied at 3-all three minutes later when Detweiler had punched the ball away only to have the rebound shot fly past him. Stritch scored the go-ahead goal at 33 minutes then held off IMS for the win.

Both IMS and Cardinal Stritch took 20 shots and had six saves. Detweiler allowed four goals and had five saves. Luke Gingerich closed out the game in goal and recorded one save.

Coach Miller reported some changes in the starting line-up for the Maroon and Black’s next game at Danville, including the addition of Hershberger and putting Gingerich in goal. However, Miller expected his kids to bounce back and be ready to finish out the season strong.

“They are high school kids, they recover fairly quickly. Some of them were pretty down, a lot of them felt they could have played better, some felt they were physically and mentally tired after playing Pella, but that is something they have to deal with,” Miller said.