Whitehall soccer falls to Fremont in district semifinals
MONTAGUE — Despite finally having a fully healthy roster and playing a strong first half against Fremont in Monday's district semifinal, the Whitehall Vikings were turned away 3-0, ending one of the more injury-plagued seasons Whitehall coach Adam Prince can recall.
"It's been one of the strangest seasons I've ever been a
part of," Prince said. "This is the first time since before Labor Day that we've been fully healthy. That's
what hurts the most. We're finally fully healthy and
finally a full team again...We had six guys that played today that didn't play
the last time we played them. That's the most frustrating
thing. We were finally healthy and we thought if we could make it
by this one that we had a chance."
The Vikes (7-10-1) had a full game of Mason Mulnix after the senior and team leader in goals came off the bench and delivered two dramatic extra time goals to win the first-round game against Oakridge last week. With that surge of momentum, the Vikings felt like they controlled the first half of play, but Fremont cashed in one of its best opportunities on a goal by Deagan Klimek. Down 1-0 late in the half, Whitehall avoided a bigger deficit when the ball got away from the defense in front of the net and Tyler Van Antwerp made a big play to knock the ball out of the danger zone.
Whitehall's Keegan Frees (left) tries to get by Fremont's Hudson Wiersema to get to the ball during Monday's district semifinal at Montague. The Vikings lost, 3-0.
However, the Packers started the second half quickly, scoring off a corner kick when Klimek was able to get free and knock the ball into the net. Prince said the Vikings did not do a good enough job keeping Klimek from having a free run at the net on the play
"He just had an open lane to the front of the goal and put it in," Prince said. "I give Steve (Vissia, Fremont's coach) a lot
of credit, because he coaches them to make sure that they
finish those. Every year he gets (that) out of them. They pick up on people's mistakes and
then they finish them."
Fremont got another goal off a set play later in the half, when Joey Mansfield got possession of the ball off a free kick following a Viking foul and fired it in. At that point 24 minutes remained, but three goals is a big deficit to erase against a good team, and Whitehall was unable to sustain the same kind of attack it had put together in the first half. Prince said there was some frustration that the Vikes were unable to get more out of an impressive first half. Mulnix and Carter Burrous each had first-half opportunities that narrowly missed the post. "Having this be the first time all season we've all been healthy and we've had a full crew, and actually seeing how we can pass the ball around, and just not being able to finish (was frustrating)," Prince said. "We had a good look and just put it right at (the Fremont keeper's) chest. He made two great saves in the first half. One was a dive and one was a punch over (the crossbar). It was one of those games where the breaks went their way and the breaks didn't go our way."
