The boys soccer rivalry between Minnetonka and Edina continued on a very windy night Oct. 16 at Dan Patch Stadium in Prior Lake.
Neither team was able to score in the run of play, however, Minnetonka scored on Elijah Ryan’s penalty kick in the second half on the way to a 1-0 win.
Senior attacker Noah Izquierdo of Minnetonka was in the midst of a breakaway against Edina when the fateful foul occurred. Goalkeeper Tyler Baker came out of the net to challenge Izquierdo’s rush and a collision sent both boys to the ground. The call was a foul against Baker in the box, so Minnetonka was awarded a penalty kick.
To make matters worse, since Baker was called for the foul, he had to come off the field with a yellow card. That meant senior Timmy Amevo had to come off the bench to defend the penalty kick. Amevo guessed right, but dove a little too quickly, giving Ryan the opening he needed to drive the soccer ball into the net.
Ryan took off for the Minnetonka fan section with teammates trailing behind. Across the field, Baker returned to the game. Baker allowed nothing more and Minnetonka goalkeeper Alex Keekley kept the sheet clean to give Minnetonka its second consecutive Section 2AAA championship.
“Tyler hesitated a little bit when he saw him [Izquierdo] coming,” Edina head coach Dave Jenson said. “He thought that there might have been an offside. Tyler did what he needed to do. It was one of those collisions that happens in soccer.”
As the match progressed, Edina was going with the wind in the second half. The Hornets had some hard shots and good chances - one in particular when junior captain Andreas Engle took a long shot that was carried a couple of feet wide by the wind.
“That might be the strongest wind I have ever coached in,” Jenson said. “We had our chances with the wind at our backs in the second half. Besides the shot by Andreas, Tommy Ott had a header and Stellan Twill had a couple free kicks. There were opportunities for sure.”
“Edina is the last team I’d ever want to face against the wind,” Minnetonka head coach Mike Rogers said after the match. “On a night like this, the wind becomes the 12th man. In the second half, we had to keep the ball on the ground. Edina had some chances, and so did we. One of our best chances was a two-on-one breakaway that we didn’t convert.”
Ryan, who came through on the penalty kick, said, “You have a sense that you’ll win when you go up in a game like this. I was really confident.”
“We lost to Edina during the regular season and that was our only loss,” Minnetonka goalie Keekley said. “I didn’t have much to do tonight, but Edina had a few chances. When Eli took the penalty kick, I knew he’d bang it in.”
The win over Edina made Minnetonka’s season record 16-1-1. In addition to the loss to Edina, the only blip on the record was a 1-1 tie against Eagan.
Edina finished the season 12-3-3 overall and went undefeated in the Lake Conference with a 4-0-2 record.
“We had a lot of young guys on the field this year,” Jenson said. “I am proud of the way we played. Our guys left it all on the field. The guys coming back gained a lot of experience.”
Only nine players on Edina’s 22-man roster are seniors, so next season could be even better. “We will miss the seniors,” coach Jenson said. “Tommy Ott and Tyler Baker are among the best players in the state.”
Amevo, Giancarlo Angelats, Phil Colwell, Topher Fullerton, Liam Garner, Carson Frederick and Will Irwin are the other seniors on the Hornet roster.
Minnetonka has 16 seniors this year.
“We have been looking forward to this year ever since we ran the table in 9A soccer,” Izquierdo. “Every year [on varsity], it comes down to Edina and us.”
“It always depends on who wants it more,” Keekley observed.
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