Remarkably, a historical evening for all the wrong reasons in the eyes of Nixa coach Evan Palmer nearly ended with the Eagles staging a miracle comeback.
Nixa had several shots on goal in an effort to tie things up over the final few minutes, before bowing to Kickapoo 3-2 Thursday.
The Eagles never led and were down 3-1, after mistakes on kickoffs, of all things, at both ends of the field set the Chiefs up for two of their three scores.
“You don’t think you have to work on defending kickoffs and you don’t think you have to work on kicking the ball off,” Palmer said. “but that’s how they got two of their goals, off of us passing it back and not handling it and off of them sending the ball to a corner and winning the ball somehow when we had 30 yards on them sprinting to the ball. I still can’t fathom those two goals. Those are maybe two of the dumbest goals we’ve giving up in the history of our program.
“When you mentally make mistakes off of kickoffs, something is wrong,” he added. “You give up cheap goals like that and it obviously hurts your cause.”
“We made simple mistakes,” midfielder Colin Cash said. “It’s irritating making those mistakes.”
The game followed a familiar script for Nixa in its 2-2 start. The Eagles have been in what seems like constant comeback mode.
“We know we can get back in games. But you’d prefer not to have to fight back,” Cash said. “We continually get 1-0 down. We can take it to most teams. But we can’t consistently perform offensively. We’re always trailing.”
Kickapoo controlled the ball the majority of the night, with the Chiefs’ superior size standing out. Most fights for possession went the hosts’ way.
“Kickapoo is bigger. We’ve got skinny guys,” Palmer said. “We’ve got to work on getting in the weight room more. That will be one of our focuses.”
“They’re in general bigger than us,” forward Andrew Butler said. “There is definitely a genetic aspect to it. We have a lot of small people. But I think some extra effort can be put in, a little more dedication.”
“We’re a pretty small team,” Cash said. “We do know how to use our body. We do obviously need to get bigger. But it’s more about heart and we didn’t have it as much as them. They wanted it more. For half the game, it didn’t seen like we wanted it as much as them. Their heart and dedication was more.”
The Eagles will receive a boost in two weeks when forward Josh Stoneberger regains his eligibility.
Nixa at least finished strong, scoring twice during the final portion of the second half. Cash scored on a penalty kick and Butler followed up with a goal of his own.
“We gave ourselves a chance,” Palmer said. “I love what we did the last 15 minutes. We have it in us. That’s what is frustrating.”
“It would have been terrible to have a big gap (in the final score) and we got our goal off a PK. It was good to run a play and get a goal to give us a confidence boost,” Butler said. “We turned it on the last 10-15 minutes. But it’s frustrating we weren’t able to do that from the get-go. In the future, we need to put a team away, instead of playing catch-up like we have been.”
Palmer added he has been pleased with the progress of goalkeeper Logan Elmer, a relative newcomer in front of the net.
“Logan will make a mistake once in a while, but he finds a way to get a save for the most part,” Palmer said. “I’m happy where he is.”
