The Chanute Blue Comets soccer team hosted the Independence Bulldogs for their first game of the season on Friday. Both teams scored one goal and went the distance through two overtimes to walk away with a tie. 

“A lot of things went pretty well. We learned a lot about ourselves tonight. We learned we have two freshmen that can get in and be real contributors: Eli and Dash. They came in and played significant-quality minutes that helped the team,” Chanute’s head coach Adam Wilcox said, “We know that we have depth now, that we can work with. The quality on our bench is the best we’ve ever had. Realistically, the last two years we would’ve lost that game because we didn’t have pieces coming off the bench like we did today.”

Both teams came in with intensity. To the point that Indy’s Connor Boomsma received a yellow card just five minutes into the contest. They went back-and-forth, each team getting good shots, each team playing better defense. Then Macoy Birde put in a goal for the Bulldogs off of a corner kick in the 35th minute. The half would end with Independence up 1-0.

“Seeing the rotations we had on defense were awesome. And Drayton, what do you say about your senior All-League keeper? He played excellent. I trust him with everything in the back. The goal we gave up honestly was a mental lapse,” Wilcox said, “We just dropped focus for three seconds. We were three seconds away from easily winning that game. I guess they could say that but I feel like our goal was quality, play up the back, ball in the middle and theirs was a corner that bounced through the box and we didn’t clear.”

In the 51st minute junior and track state champion Rawley Chard ran the ball downfield. After a long touch, he recovered and dumped the ball off to Jaxson Vaughan. Vaughan put in the easy goal to tie it up. End of regulation, tied 1-1. Neither team would be able to score in 20 minutes of overtime, ending in a tie.

“Our goal came from Jaxson in his first varsity minutes. I told him ‘I need three to five minutes to give a starter a rest. Three to five minutes I need 100% max effort.’ He went in, he did it and he scored. We just have lacked that, so that’s a great quality.”