.png)
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
ARGOS — The Argos boys soccer team defeated Culver 10-0 in a Class 1A, Sectional 36 semifinal at Argos on Oct. 9, but it could be argued that both teams had reason to be happy.
Argos got to advance to the sectional final against Lakeland Christian, who had knocked off Winamac 9-0 earlier in the day. And Culver got to participate in the sectional despite there being no guarantee that they would have a team.
Luke Stults scored four goals and dished out an assist, and Elias Rakoczy, Kenyan Beldon, Ioan Petz, Keagan Stanley, Ethan Petz and Yahor Fajardo also had a goal.
Stanley and Ethan Petz had assists each, and Beldon and Kyle Penn also had an assist.
Argos led 7-0 at halftime. Once the lead reached nine, the game ended with 20 minutes left, per the IHSAA Mercy Rule.
Argos had beaten Culver 11-0 in their regular season meeting on Sept. 7.
“They’re a great soccer team,” Culver first-year coach Mike Buschman said. “I coached some of the younger groups, and I know they’ve always been good. We hope to start to get some of our kids who have played all the way through up who understand the game. That’s the biggest thing. They understand the game of soccer. They understand where they are supposed to be. That’s one of the things we’d really like to try to help our guys do – to learn the sport.”
Argos improved to 9-5-1. Culver finished 1-9.
Their lone win was a 4-3 win in penalty kicks over Oregon-Davis in their regular season finale. Johnny Villegas had a hat trick, including one on a penalty kick and one unassisted. Kael Buschman had an assist.
Culver’s roster consisted of 13 players. Adam Peterson was the lone senior. There were also six freshmen and four sophomores.
“Adam has done a great job of leading us this year,” Buschman said. “In just setting a tone for us, in his work ethic, in his ability to show guys even in the face of being down seven, eight, nine, 10 to zero, we’re still going to play hard. … We had a couple of captains this year, and him being here because we’re an extremely young and inexperienced team, so having him there to help our other captain realize that this is how you do things, this is how you handle yourself. It was invaluable to us.”
Buschman said he had three players with previous soccer experience and “five or six” players who had never played soccer before. He said “half” of the five or six had never played any organized team sport.
“I know we have room to improve,” Buschman said. “If we’re going to make huge leaps, it’s sad Adam won’t be around to see that because he laid a lot of the foundation and a lot of what these guys are going to jump off of.”
Culver packed the box defensively, and Argos coach Todd VanDerWeele said his team had mixed results. VanDerWeele also praised Culver for their “spirit.”
“I thought in the first half, we played a little cleaner,” VanDerWeele said. “A lot of their defenders were concentrated in the center of the field. At times, we dealt with it, but at times, we didn’t deal with it very well. We got a little impatient at times. There were times we tried to use the outsides to come in, and there was some success there. It was when we tried to ram through all those players that we didn’t have any success, and we tried it too much at times. So it did affect us at times.”
VanDerWeele also said that freshman goalkeeper Angelo McMillen missed the game due to an injured finger suffered in practice. Boyd Paul filled in.
VanDerWeele said McMillen would be evaluated before the Lakeland Christian game.
Comments