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Home / Sports / Iowa High School Sports / High School Soccer
Dragons win Class 4A state semifinal in penalties, a year after topping Trojans in double overtime for the 4A state title
May. 31, 2024 7:08 pm, Updated: May. 31, 2024 8:59 pm
DES MOINES — There was no sweet revenge.
One year after dropping the Class 4A boys’ state soccer championship match in double overtime to Johnston, Iowa City West again met up with the Dragons at the state tournament, albeit one round earlier.
Not even two extra periods were enough to decide this one.
“Yeah, that might have been the theme of it,” West Coach Brad Stiles said after the fourth-ranked Trojans fell to top-ranked and defending state champion Johnston, 2-1 (4-3 PKs), in a Class 4A boys’ soccer state semifinal Friday at Mediacom Stadium.
“We created some chances and didn’t get a finish. … We’ve been scoring a lot of goals and one wasn’t enough today.”
After two 10-minute overtime periods yielded no tiebreaker, the match moved to penalty kicks to decide it. Johnston converted four of its five attempts, while West had two shots hit the post and fell, 4-3.
“It’s got to end sometime, right?” Stiles said. “I told these guys earlier, ‘This game isn’t going to be eight hours.’ You need 80 minutes. We got a little bit of extra time today, but they left it on the field today.”
Johnston (19-2) has won 11 matches in a row and is in the state finals for the fourth time. The Dragons will play for a second-straight 4A title Saturday at 7 p.m. at Mediacom Stadium against No. 2 West Des Moines Dowling (19-2).
West — which entered the match with wins in 19 of its 20 matches — ends its season at 20-3. Its lone loss during that stretch? May 11 at Johnston, 1-0, in double overtime.
“I thought for sure it would be a 3-2 game like the (2023) final,” Stiles said. “There are just too many good athletes on the field. Too many guys that are hungry to go score a goal. Post out, I don’t know how much closer you can get.”
Both teams scored in the first half. West’s Ismail Mohamed broke the scoreless tie in the 20th minute with his ninth goal of the season, while Johnston’s Kyron Pope got the equalizer with just over seven minutes until halftime.
The match remained deadlocked at 1-1 until the penalty-kick phase.
The Trojans will graduate 11 seniors off their roster.
“From the classes that I’ve had recently, these guys are the ones that have matured the most,” Stiles said. “When they were sophomores, they were really immature. At this point, they have left the program in a good place and they have done what they needed to do. Obviously they didn’t get the win today, but they did things with class. We can take that with us.”
Vanessa Miller
Vanessa Miller
Bailey Cichon
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